GroupWare Tools/Technologies

1. GroupWare Tools/Technologies Shilpa Jaswal 18 April 2001

2. What is GroupWare? • GroupWare is any type of software or technology designed for groups and for communication. • Examples includes email, newsgroups, videophones, or chat.

3. Why Have GroupWare Technologies? • Facilitate communication • Enable telecommuting • Cut down on travel costs • Bring together multiple perspectives and expertise • Form groups with common interests • Save time and cost in coordinating group work • Facilitate group problem-solving

4. GroupWare Dimensions

5. GroupWare Applications • Asynchronous: • Email: 1-to-1 communication. Basic technology is designed to pass simple messages between 2 people, even relatively basic email systems today typically include interesting features for forwarding messages, filing messages, creating mailing groups, and attaching files with a message. • Newsgroups and mailing lists: Intended for messages among large groups of people instead of 1-to-1 communication. The main difference between newsgroups and mailing lists is that newsgroups only show messages to a user when they are explicitly requested (an "on-demand" service), while mailing lists deliver messages as they become available (an "interrupt-driven" interface).

6. GroupWare Applications • Asynchronous: • Workflow systems: Allow documents to be routed through organizations through a relatively-fixed process. Workflow systems may provide features such as routing, development of forms, and support for differing roles and privileges. • Hypertext: A system for linking text documents to each other. Whenever multiple people author and link documents, the system becomes group work, constantly evolving and responding to others' work.

7. GroupWare Applications • Asynchronous: • Group calendars: Allow scheduling, project management, and coordination among many people, and may provide support for scheduling equipment as well. • Collaborative writing systems: Provide both real-time support and non-real-time support. • Word processors may provide asynchronous support by showing authorship and by allowing users to track changes and make annotations to documents. • Synchronous support allows authors to see each other's changes as they make them, and usually needs to provide an additional communication channel to the authors as they work (via videophones or chat).

8. GroupWare Applications • Synchronous or Real-Time: • Shared whiteboards: Allow two or more people to view and draw on a shared drawing surface even from different locations. • Video communications: Systems allow two-way or multi-way calling with live video, essentially a telephone system with an additional visual component. • Chat systems: Permit many people to write messages in real-time in a public space.

9. GroupWare Applications • Synchronous or Real-Time: • Decision support systems: Designed to facilitate groups in decision-making. They provide tools for brainstorming, critiquing ideas, putting weights and probabilities on events and alternatives, and voting. • Multi-player games: Games can be enhanced by other communication media, such as chat or video systems.

10. GroupWare Tools • Blackboard Inc. • Develops software that allows colleges, universities and other commercial education providers to bring their courses, communities, campus services and total ".edu" Web presence online. • Worknet from Avail Technologies. • Java program that provides the ability for workflow designers to create a graphical representation of a workflow process and route steps using standard e-mail.

11. GroupWare Tools (Cont.…) • Action Tech. • Specializes in software that enables people to work in mission critical projects and processes that cross corporate boundaries. • Meetingworks • MeetingWorks provides a simple way to manage a meeting through the smooth and efficient use of an agenda, making use of a powerful set of advanced tools

12. GroupWare Tools (Cont.…) • CommunityZero • Allows any Internet user to create their own private area on the Web to connect a group of people. • Cybozu • Web-based office GroupWare running on a LAN, a variety of applications such as Office, Scheduler, Address book, Webmail, Todo List, Bulletin Board etc.

13. GroupWare Tools (Cont.…) • eBeam • Turns whiteboards into digital collaborative workspaces using infra-red and ultrasonic tech. • eShare • Software provides electronic customer relationship management using voice, e-mail, live interaction/chat and hosting services.

14. Rules For Success with GroupWare • GroupWare changes the corporate culture. Plan for it! • Pick a pilot project rather than trying to roll GroupWare out to the whole organization. • Training, maintenance, and support will be the majority of the cost, rather than the initial cost of the software. • Pick GroupWare software based on a specific business problem that needs to be solved and has not been solved successfully using traditional methods. • No single GroupWare product can do it all. Don't expect it to!

15. Conclusion • GroupWare can be an effective tool for a corporation. • It can help reduce cost and improve productivity

16. References • http://usabilityfirst.com/groupware/index.txl • http://www.collaborate.com/publication/publications_resources_groupware_book_section_1_3.htm • http://www.eshare.com/ • http://www.e-beam.com/ • http://www.blackboard.net/ • http://cybozu.com/ • http://www.communityzero.com/ • http://www.avabiz.com/index.html • http://www.avabiz.com/index.html