Groupware and Online Collaboration: Collaboration Series #4 > NetSparsh

Home
>
Software
>
Groupware and Online Collaboration: Collaboration Series #4

Groupware and Online Collaboration: Collaboration Series #4

This article is the fourth of a series of articles exploring specific aspects of groupware. The brief informational articles in this series discuss some of the technologies associated with groupware, as well as some of the characteristics of groupware. Some of these characteristics may go hand in hand with business collaborative needs. Other characteristics go beyond what some groupware providers have to offer. The purpose of these articles is to equip the groupware user or investigator with helpful knowledge about the product in order to enable more effective use or to lead the investigator to the groupware service he or she is looking for. This fourth article explores the ability of groupware to facilitate online collaboration.

Online Collaboration

Online collaboration consists of sending emails back and forth to edit and review attached documents, like market reports, budgets, contracts, and press releases. Most businesses go through this process very regularly with departments, clients, investors, and strategic partners.

In today's fast-paced business world, businesses are constantly under deadlines, working tirelessly for their business and client needs. The challenge is in keeping up with all of the online collaboration going on. After all, online collaboration has become an ad hoc process, and document versions get saved in multiple email boxes and on multiple hard drives. When it comes time to merge document changes and create a final draft, many questions are left unanswered.

The market has recognized the need for groupware, or online collaboration software, to manage and track document changes. Using the right groupware will even enable businesses to manage ad hoc online collaboration, tracking all of the documents versions across multiple emails, hard drives, and servers. The who, what, when, where, and how are all answered, and businesses will have an organizational edge in the high-speed information age of business.

Online Collaboration Tools with Groupware

5,200,000 indexed pages are found under "groupware" in Google; 4,840,000 in Yahoo; and 955,263 in MSN Search. In order to find groupware for your business online collaboration needs, you need to be equipped with the knowledge of the tools your business needs in its groupware.

Digital Thread technology takes groupware to a whole new level and is the means of tracking document versions across emails, hard drives, and servers. Digital Thread literally threads the document versions together by tagging the metadata of an electronic document, so that no matter to whom it is sent or what changes are made, the data comes back to you. It creates digital signatures in your email, informing you whether you are opening the latest version of the document, and who saved it. As the process becomes more involved, and drafts have been sent back and forth between multiple reviewers multiple times, you'll be able to access a version history. Version history is compiled by Digital Thread technology and provides a visual display of the genealogy of the document, from first draft to last. This also makes it possible to merge the changes as the final draft is compiled.

Groupware that can manage online collaboration and go beyond a simple electronic draft filing system to work the way 21st century businesses work.

Joe Miller is an online advertiser and author of informational articles on business software. More information on Groupware or Online Collaboration is available at NextPage.com.

In The News:

This RSS feed URL is deprecated, please update. New URLs can be found in the footers at https://news.google.com/news

TechCrunch
Ultimate Software is acquiring PeopleDoc for $300 million
TechCrunch
Public company Ultimate Software is acquiring French startup PeopleDoc for $300 million in cash and stock. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018. These two companies both make HR solutions. Ultimate Software has been around ...
Ultimate Software enters $300M deal to acquire Paris-based startupSouth Florida Business Journal
Ultimate Software Group (ULTI) to Acquire PeopleDocStreetInsider.com

all 10 news articles »

The Verge
A major election software maker allowed remote access on its systems for years
The Verge
A major voting machine maker, Election Systems & Software, revealed in a letter to a US senator that it installed remote-access software on its machines over a period of six years. The revelation raises substantial security concerns, as reported by ...
Voting-Machine Vendor Put Remote-Access Software on Systems ...Daily Beast
Voting equipment maker sold systems with remote-access software ...The Hill
A Voting-Machine Manufacturer Installed Remote-Access Software ...Pacific Standard
Futurism -Washington Times -Paste Magazine -New York Times
all 13 news articles »

CNET
RealNetworks gives away facial recognition software to make ...
CNET
Former music giant hopes its program will help protect kids on campus.
This company is giving away face recognition software to K-12 schoolsMIT Technology Review

all 6 news articles »

Engadget
Google's Course Kit injects Docs and Drive into educator software
Engadget
In essence, this should let teachers and students use Google Docs seamlessly with their existing software setup. The former can leave comments on assignments exactly as they would a Google Document, and even suggests commonly-used notes so they ...

and more »

TechCrunch
Nuraphones get active noise cancelling via software update ...
TechCrunch
I like the Nuraphones a lot. In fact, I named the sound-adapting headphones one of my favorite things of 2017. Clearly I'm not alone in that enthusiasm, either ...

and more »

Ars Technica
Developer faces prison after admitting admin software was really a ...
Ars Technica
A Kentucky man has pleaded guilty to federal charges he developed, marketed, and provided technical support for a "remote access trojan," or RAT—that is, ...

and more »

Undo gets $14M to scale to meet the software accountability ...
TechCrunch
Undo, a long time player in the debugging tools space, offering its program execution capture and replay technology to help others diagnose software failures, ...

and more »

The Register
Who is the weakest link in software security?
The Register
But what are the practicalities of this? Do developers – ie, those writing the code – need to take more responsibility for software security? If so, then what do they need to step up, without killing their productivity, destroying their morale, and ...

Infosecurity Magazine
Reprise Software Refuses to Patch RLM Issue
Infosecurity Magazine
Reprise Software has refused to patch a vulnerability in its Reprise License Manager (RTM) which has been flagged by SpiderLabs at Trustwave. Discovered by security consultant, Adrian Pruteanu, the issue comes about by running on the non-standard port ...

RMS Strengthens Asia-Pacific Capabilities in Version 18 of Modeling Software
Insurance Journal
RMS, the Newark, Calif.-based risk modeling and analytics firm, announced it has strengthened the Asia Pacific capabilities of its Version 18 catastrophe risk management software. The Asia Pacific model suit is being expanded to include new peril ...

Google News

Groupware and Online Collaboration: Collaboration Series #4

Software Software