Groupware

Succeeding in business requires close teamwork and collaboration. Your computing platform should enhance the collaborative process. The email, Instant Messaging (IM), and group calendar features that Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server provide go a long way toward enhancing group productivity. IBM's Lotus Notes and Domino go a step further by adding threaded discussions to improve group communications.

These tools are effective when project workgroups (i.e., teams) are small and when participants are involved in only one project. But as teams increase in size, projects become more complex, and team members become involved in multiple projects, managing the collaborative process and project information becomes difficult.

Several vendors have introduced groupware products that make collaboration easier for teams without creating big headaches for the IT staff. These products include Groove Networks' Groove Workspace Professional Edition 2.5, Microsoft SharePoint Team Services 1.0, BrightWork's Brightwork 2.4 (formerly known as TeamCentral 2.4), Vialect's IntraConnections 3.0 and Intra.Net 4.4.1, and eRoom Technology's Documentum eRoom 6.0. (At press time, Documentum had signed a definitive agreement to acquire eRoom Technology.)

All these groupware products provide digital workspaces for each project. Digital workspaces are essentially separate graphical environments containing all documents, calendars, threaded discussions, and other tools that the group uses. All these products complement Exchange in that they use Exchange's mail services and, in most cases, they let you import and export tasks, contacts, and calendar entries between the group's digital workspace and Outlook. One product even runs on top of Exchange and uses Exchange's Information Store (IS) for all file storage.

In addition to providing common tools such as threaded discussions and group calendars, many of these products provide a variety of other tools. Those tools include

• application-sharing tools that let participants collaboratively create or edit documents in realtime
• image viewers
• connectors to enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), or other mission-critical applications
• task lists for each participant
• polling tools that let team leaders poll all team members
• portals to digital workspaces at the enterprise level or participant level

A benefit of using a groupware product is that when a participant adds comments to a threaded discussion or changes a group document, meeting schedule, or task list, the product notifies all other participants. In Groove Workspace, a notification flag appears when participants launch the Groove Workspace client; the rest of the products use email to notify participants. The mix of features varies from product to product, but this type of functionality makes these products well worth the money.

All the products have a server component. In all but one product, participants access the digital workspace from their Web browsers. The exception is Groove Workspace; participants access this product's digital workspace from a proprietary client. Although a client-based product permits mobile computing, inviting customers or business partners into the collaboration process is easier with browser-based products. The invitees can simply use their browsers to access the digital workspace rather than having to download and use a proprietary client.

For the browser-based products, you can purchase a perpetual license or let the vendor host the product and subscribe to a monthly service. If you subscribe to a hosted service, the vendor handles all maintenance and upgrades. However, because the shared documents and files reside on the vendor's server (in encrypted form), you have to weigh the convenience against security concerns. In addition, if you want to include your company's logo or use a specific color scheme in the digital workspace, you can't subscribe to a hosted service.