What is Groupware?
Have you ever had to manage document collaboration in a hurry? No need to be ashamed if you said "yes." Virtually every American business has experienced moments of ad hoc team collaboration. In other words, the ideal business collaboration method involves meticulous record keeping and organization; all deadlines are met; nobody feels rushed. That doesn't sound very realistic, does it? The important thing is that even scattered, ad hoc business collaboration can be organized in such a way that important records of business documents and their version history can be kept. Groupware tracks all documents across email and hard drives, tracking changes and saved locations. Groupware also lets businesses review changes and merge them, simplifying an often difficult process. Groupware is time-saving software recognized by American businesses for solving the ad hoc collaboration challenges. Any given search engine search for "groupware" will undoubtedly yield a long list of sponsored searches in addition to the millions of indexed pages referencing groupware products, testifying to its usefulness among American businesses.
Groupware as a Collaboration Tool
Due to the fact that millions of groupware packages are available for businesses, users must do their homework to find the right groupware to suit their business needs. One of the best ways to start is to analyze groupware as a collaboration tool. Since businesses collaborate on virtually everything from budgets to marketing reports, presentations, and memos, businesses need a collaboration tool that works the way businesses work. The difficulty of some groupware packages is that even though they provide a virtual vignette of helpful tools, instead of groupware working for you, you are working for it. I do not think I would be alone in raising my voice against difficult and expensive IT infrastructure set-ups. Software that does its job after it is downloaded or installed is the best way to go. Be sure to be thorough in analyzing the costs, including the opportunity costs, of groupware as your business collaboration tool.
Having analyzed the set-up costs, it is time to move on to analyzing the usability of groupware as a collaboration tool. First, does the groupware package your business is looking at work only within your office, or does it also work with clients, investors, partners, and others with whom you collaborate? It is important to remember that no business is an island. A collaboration tool which cuts out those with whom you collaborate will not be very helpful. In other words, groupware which works with those outside your business once it is installed helps everyone to be on the same page. Being on the same page is important when working through the barrage of business collaboration documents being fired back and forth between email accounts. Email is an example of how collaboration is so often done online. Your usability analysis of groupware as a collaboration tool must take into account online collaboration.
User Friendly Groupware
Finally, after costs and usability are taken into account, let me offer some helpful tips on selecting a groupware suite with helpful and user-friendly technology.
First, find groupware with Digital Thread technology. Digital Thread is a technology that works for your business from the moment your groupware is installed. Digital Thread tracks documents and their changes across email and hard drives by tagging the metadata of the document. The document changes are literally threaded together like beads on a necklace, not a single one gets lost.
Second, find groupware that creates a Digital Signature. Digital Signature is a signature that is appended to an e-mail that informs the user which draft it is and by whom it was saved. Finding the latest version of a document is always very simple to track with a signature like this.
Third, find groupware that enables Version History. Version History displays the document genealogy as a flow chart. The who, what, when, where, and how of every document is displayed for simple tracking and record keeping.
American businesses recognize the need for document management that works the way they do. Often, the ideal business process is not realized, and more often than not, ad hoc becomes the business process. These tips are designed to help businesses make an informed decision on groupware packages that are flexible to their needs. Affordability, flexibility, usability, and organization are benchmarks by which effective collaboration tool analysis can determine your business groupware.
Joe Miller is an author of informational articles and online advertisements on business, technology, and health. Information on online advertisements is available at online advertisements.
Bradley bmw rental chicago .. Lockport Chicago limo O’HareMicrosoft Great Plains fits to majority of industries, in the... Read More
What is IRC?IRC is Internet Relay Chat. It is a... Read More
Are you lost in the mess of documents that get... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was designed back in the... Read More
Research bears that less than 70 percent of development projects... Read More
When my daughter was getting into AOL instant messaging (AIM)... Read More
When you think... Read More
For those who still don't know, Microsoft Publisher helps computer... Read More
It's not very often I get excited about a software... Read More
Spyware and Adware infest over 90 percent of computers in... Read More
In order to meet regulatory and corporate compliance requirements reporting... Read More
I like my software simple. If it's too complex or... Read More
If you have Microsoft Great Plains and support it... Read More
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is marketed for mid-size companies... Read More
Most computer users use spreadsheets software such as Microsoft Excel... Read More
When it comes to running an office, the SOHO entrepreneur... Read More
Writing software manuals is boring, isn't it? We often think:... Read More
Currently Microsoft Business Solutions is on the way of creating... Read More
Former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise, and currently Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More
Scrapbooks are very popular these days. I think that almost... Read More
eStore Advantage allows front-office applications to communicate with back-office business... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains could be tuned and setup to fit... Read More
Disclaimer: All the thoughts expressed are my views only! Your... Read More
Are you a database professional? Do you work with a... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Retail Management System (Microsoft RMS)... Read More
prom limo McHenry ..Stealing company information used to be the specialty of spies... Read More
It's all about turn times in the eMedia industry! The... Read More
It's not very often I get excited about a software... Read More
I started using PIP (Picture It Publishing) Platinum 2002 right... Read More
Navision Software was purchased by Microsoft and now it is... Read More
FTP stands for "file transfer protocol". FTP is basically a... Read More
Lotus Notes Domino is very efficient in electronic document workflow... Read More
Creating a new markup language.Introduction.General Reuse Markup Langauge, or GRML,... Read More
This is the tutorial where we really get into programming.... Read More
As we could imagine, if you are reading this article... Read More
Having from five to ten and more favorite screensavers is... Read More
As Mozilla Firefox nears 10% market share, with well over... Read More
MSN messenger is a pretty cool invention. I mean I'm... Read More
So, you've bought a new Macintosh, and now you may... Read More
There are two approaches for application integration:? Programmer's approach ?... Read More
In order to implement VLANs in a network environment, you'll... Read More
Now there are Three Steps To Heaven Just listen and... Read More
When you buy a computer, it most likely comes with... Read More
If you have been using the Internet for any amount... Read More
Most computer users use spreadsheets software such as Microsoft Excel... Read More
While I was preparing some personal background information for a... Read More
You turn on your computer, and it doesn't look quite... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and Axapta are Microsoft Business... Read More
Case study: A secretary using Corel WordPerfect 7 is often... Read More
What is Snort?Snort is an open source network intrusion detection... Read More
Software |