Chapter 23 -- A Global View of Groupware




Chapter 23
A Global View of Groupware



CONTENTS


A Global View of Groupware




Intranet hardware and underlying communications protocols by themselves
are of no great use to anyone. The most powerful servers, fiber-optic
cables, T-1 communication lines, ISDN modems, or streaming multimedia
can't do anything by themselves. They're only important because
they allow people to communicate, share information, and work
better together.

While many intranet technologies allow people to work better together-including
just about every intranet technology, including even the World
Wide Web-the most important set of intranet software for allowing
people to better communicate and cooperate is called workgroup
software. Workgroup software lets people share files and information;
work better together in teams; cooperate more easily on projects;
and in general work together in ways never before possible.

You'll never find an exact definition of what workgroup software
is. In general, it's something of a fuzzy term. It encompasses
many different kinds of technologies, everything ranging from
advanced videoconferencing to simple chat technology. To some
people, Internet newsgroups are a form of groupware, while to
other people, only more sophisticated technologies qualify under
that definition.

However, in general, workgroup software is software that goes
beyond simple messaging like newsgroups and allows people to work
together as a group in more complicated ways. The key is that
it allows people to go beyond simply communicating, and lets them
work together on documents.

One thing to keep in mind about groupware is that groupware did
not come into being with the intranet. There is nothing in the
TCP/IP architecture underlying intranets that made groupware possible.
In fact, groupware has been around for years. In corporations
where there is a significant amount of sophisticated design, and
a complicated manufacturing process-such as in companies that
build airplanes, for example-workgroup software has long been
used in concert with Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing
(CAD/CAM) software. With groupware and CAD/CAM software, for example,
different designers and engineers are able to work on different
parts of an overall design at the same time-and they are able
to see the results of other people's work, since what other people
do will be reflected in what they see in their part of the design.
CAD/CAM systems like this tended to be used not on personal computers,
but instead on workstations.

The first major workgroup software for personal computers was
Lotus Notes, which combines electronic mail, discussion software,
workflow software and database technology. While Notes was designed
for personal computers instead of workstations, it wasn't designed
for intranets, and worked instead on Netware networks. However,
in more recent times, intranet-based features have been added.

Intranet-based groupware does both what Notes and CAD/CAM can
do, and more. While it's true that the TCP/IP protocols that underlay
intranets by themselves didn't make groupware possible, it's also
true that their widespread acceptance has helped spread the use
of groupware. Once companies began to see how Internet technologies
such as newsgroups allowed people to communicate better on the
Internet, they began to look at their corporations and see how
similar technologies could help companies work together as a whole.

One of the most basic pieces of workgroup software is messaging
software-programs that allow people to publicly participate in
group discussions. Group discussion software has its roots in
newsgroups, and in discussion software that is found on online
services such as CompuServe. One key to messaging software is
that it be threaded. Threaded messaging means that people
can read and respond to individual subject areas of a discussion.
For example, in a message area devoted to corporate finances,
there may be one thread concerning research-and-development finances,
another concerning engineering finances, another about marketing
finances, and so on. Good discussion software will allow people
to easily follow each of those different threads.

Some messaging software goes beyond that, however. There's nothing
about TCP/IP and intranet technology that in particular that enables
people to use threaded messaging. However, what makes intranet
messaging software especially useful is the way that it integrates
with other Internet and intranet technologies. For example, some
discussion software will allow the use of Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) embedded inside messages. This means that from within a
discussion, someone could embed a link to a Web page or other
intranet resource. When powerful programming tools like Java or
ActiveX are added to this mix, even more interactive and multimedia
possibilities are added, and the true power of mixing discussions
with intranet technology can be seen.

An often overlooked workgroup technology is electronic mail. As
with discussion software, it too can make use of other intranet
technologies. Some intranet e-mail software can read HTML files,
so links to Web pages and other intranet documents can be included
in e-mail. And e-mail can be integrated with discussion software,
so that in a discussion, people have the option of responding
to notes either in public discussions or by private e-mail, depending
on which link they click on.

Yet another means of communicating over intranets which has its
roots in older Internet technology is desktop chat. On the Internet,
this kind of chat is called Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. It allows
someone from one computer to type messages on a keyboard, and
have that message instantly appear on someone else's computer.
Intranets can let people do the same thing. While this kind of
communication isn't useful for complicated discussions, it can
be very good for quick conversations.

A more sophisticated workgroup application is desktop videoconferencing.
It requires that everyone involved have computer-linked video
cameras (which have become quite inexpensive) and hardware and
software that allows computers to send and receive voice and sound.
While sitting at computers, people can see each other and speak
to each other. Some videoconferencing software is server based,
which means that it requires that people involved must log into
a server in order to participate in a videoconference with others.
Still other videoconferencing software lets people connect directly
with other people on an intranet without having to go through
a server - all they'll need to know is someone's IP address.

A related technology is called whiteboard software. Whiteboard
software lets people see what is on someone else's computer on
an intranet, while sitting at their own computer. Even more important
than just letting people see what is on the computer is that whiteboard
software allows people to use their mouse to highlight parts of
the screen, write on the screen, and otherwise mark it up. That
means that people on the same intranet-even if they're on opposite
sides of the country from each other-can comment on each other's
work easily.

Document management and workflow software is useful for intranets
for comp`anies that have complicated work procedures, or where
many people must cooperatively put together a single document.
In intranet document management software, a document can be "locked"
so that only one person at a time can use it, and so people can't
overwrite each others' work. It can also give different people
different kinds of rights to a particular document, so that some
people may only be able to read documents, while others are able
to actually work on them, edit them, and otherwise change them.
And the most powerful document management software allows many
different people to work on different parts of the same document
simultaneously.

Similar to document management is workflow management software.
This kind of groupware manages not just individual documents,
but the entire workflow of an organization. For example, intranet
workflow management software would allow procedures for filing
expense reports to be easily computerized, so that the report
could be sent automatically up the chain of people who had to
approve it and act on it without having to resort to paper or
mail.

It's important to note that no one intranet is likely to have
all these kinds of workgroup applications. And no single piece
of software will allow for all these kinds of cooperative computing.
Rather, most intranets will take a mix-and-match kind of approach.
In fact, in some companies, different subnets or departments on
an intranet may have different kinds of workgroup applications.
The point is that intranet administrators can choose whichever
workgroup application best suits the company.

A Global View of Groupware

One of the most important reasons that companies put in an intranet
is to better enable people to work together. The most powerful
kind of software to let people work together falls under the broad
heading of groupware. Groupware lets people videoconference,
share documents, participate in discussions and work together
in other ways. Pictured here are some examples of how groupware
works together in an intranet.

Discussion software allows people from within a corporation
to exchange work and ideas. Included in the software are links
to other intranet resources, so that from within a discussion,
people can link out to a Web page on the Internet or intranet,
or can even link into intranet databases. Additionally, software
can replicate intranet discussions onto Internet news groups so
that from one discussion area, people from an intranet can hold
discussions with people from within their company or people out
on the Internet.
A popular workgroup use of intranets will be whiteboard
applications. In a whiteboard application, two or more people
can see what is on each others' computer screens across the intranet,
and they can talk about what they see. Additionally, they can
mark up what they see on each others screens.
With intranet groupware, videoconferencing can finally be
a corporate reality. Desktop conferencing software allows two
or more people to see each other and talk to each other on their
computer screens, as long as they have cameras connected to their
computers and sound-equipped computers. Since intranets can be
built using very high-bandwidth connections, it's possible to
have a videoconference across an intranet, while it can be much
more difficult to do it across an Internet because of the lower
bandwidth of the Internet.
Document and workflow management software allows intranet
administrators to create systems that track and control access
to documents through every aspect of their creation, for example,
allowing only one person at a time to check a document out of
a library. They can provide a "version history" of every
document so that anyone can see who has worked on it, and what
changes that person made. And they can give certain people the
right to "lock" the document so that no further changes
are allowed to be made.
Groupware can also allow for desk-to-desk chats - that is,
people can sit at their computers and directly communicate with
others sitting at their computers by typing on their keyboard.
What one person types at the keyboard shows up on another person's
computer screen, and vice versa.