Groupware, Workflow and Intranets: Reengineering the Enterprise with Collaborative Software
How groupware and workflow technologies can improve organizational efficiency.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Groupware, Workflow and Intranets: Reengineering the Enterprise with Collaborative Software
In This Chapter
Chapter 3 introduces different uses of groupware in business and looks at the different categories of groupware and the functions provided. The different types of groupware in Table 3.1 are reviewed in turn. The standards which are needed to help integrate different software within a business are also covered. This chapter is supplemented by Chapter 6 in which important factors in selection of groupware tools are considered. In Chapter 6 the features of alternative e-mail and groupware packages such as Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and Novell Groupwise are compared.
The Standards Game
To help people work together, standards are vital since different people in different parts of a company, or in different companies, are often using different groupware packages. To build systems which interoperate, systems integrators are continually chasing new standards as they are proposed. To help understand how the messaging standards fit together is crucial when selecting and building systems, and these are described in reasonable (but not tedious) detail in this chapter. The importance of standards is indicated by the more recent rapid adoption of group functions through intranets which has been enabled by the Internet standards.
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