Section D.1. Groupware

D.1. Groupware

Solutions in the groupware space come in many different varieties. When designing collaboration processes, keep the following in mind:

• Collaboration can be highly disruptive. People take time to adapt to new collaboration processes.

• The collaboration process should be lightweight. Elaborate workflows and hierarchical access control rules tend to inhibit adoption.

• Cultural factors affect the outcome of the collaboration process. The primary reason Wikis are rejected is because they pose too much cultural change.

Therefore, you should implement new collaboration paradigms in phases and with great regard to the sensibilities of the users being affected.

D.1.1. Intranet Solutions

Intranet solutions range from basic document sharing solutions using a web server that is restricted to a LAN, to elaborate systems that provide everything from document management to project management and forums. A typical enterprise looking to set up or improve an intranet is trying to meet the high-level objectives of increased employee communication, collaboration, and knowledge management. More specifically, intranets are deployed to provide four common solutions: project management, software development process management, document management and distribution, and forums.

D.1.1.1 Project management

Managing projects, especially for distributed teams, is an effective use of intranets. Managing project schedules and documents is a common task that intranets support. Collaborating on and coordinating project documentation incrementally is another common solution facilitated by intranets.

D.1.1.2 Software development process management

Managing software development and maintenance is another common scenario where intranets can add value, particularly in regard to nightly software releases, bug-fix coordination, and other tasks related to software development. Intranet solutions also fit well in software documentation processes. A living document, such as a page on an intranet, is often more valuable than a static document that lives in a filesystem.

D.1.1.3 Document management and distribution

Managing documents is another common function that intranets provide. These activities range from collaboratively creating a document, to managing its various revisions and coordinating feedback during the review process. Distributing large documents across the enterprise via email is cumbersome, and intranets are a viable alternative. Several case studies show that large companies save significantly by distributing documents via an intranet rather than email.

D.1.1.4 Forums

Forums or message boards can be used as an effective, if informal, method of fostering collaboration inside an enterprise. An employee can build a knowledge base just by answering her fellow employees' questions.

D.1.2. Business Application Support

The collaboration tools we list in this appendix can provide a low-cost and effective mechanism for supporting a business application or service to external or internal users.

D.1.2.1 Forums

In scenarios where an enterprise application has users spread out in various locations, providing discussion forums for low-priority support requests (a defect tracking system should be used for high-priority requests), for community building, and for allowing users to support each other can be very effective.

D.1.2.2 Application/team weblog

Other mechanisms for providing product support are product weblogs and developer weblogs, where significant events in a product's development cycle can be posted. This gives interested users early information about an upcoming release. Similar information, when released via email, tends to affect the entire user base, when only a few users are interested in it. Weblogs also serve as an archive for this information.

D.1.3. Open Source Groupware Capabilities

In this section, we look at the features provided by open source projects.

D.1.3.1 Forums

Forums, or bulletin board software, are a popular and easy way to build, foster, and nurture a community. Basic web-based forums are easy to implement. Perhaps this why a lot of them are implemented in PHP. However, mature forum systems are hard to come by. What differentiates great forum software from the rest of the pack is its ability to allow a community to sustain itself and grow organically. It does this by providing granular access control in different levels of moderation, and by providing different features, such as the ability to let power users find unread posts, while not overwhelming novice users by providing sticky threads and a flexible search.

In the context of an enterprise, forums can be used to provide a variety of solutions, including community-managed product support.

D.1.3.2 Basic features

• Posting, replying, and editing topics and messages.

• Limited HTML tags for message styling.

• Automatic lost-password retrieval.

• Forum moderation.

• A moderation queue. In moderated forums, the moderator can view all unapproved messages and approve or delete them on the spot.

D.1.3.3 Content management and collaboration features

• Sticky/announcement messages that stay on top of the forum until they reach an expiry date

• Thread locking by forum administrators and moderators

• File extension control, allowing/disallowing uploading of certain files based on their extensions

• Fully customizable headers and footers, which can support PHP code

• Language filters that allow the administrator to replace certain offensive words

• Unread post tracking that automatically lets a user see which posts have not yet been read

• Extensive message filtering, by date, read/unread, forum, thread, and reply status

• Message reporting, which allows visitors to report inappropriate messages to the administrator

D.1.3.4 User management features

• Email confirmation of registered users

• Hidden, private, moderated, and password-protected forums

• Banning of users by their username and/or IP address or IP mask, email address filter, or login name filter to disallow users with privileged-sounding usernames or usernames from known problem email domains

• Cookie-based tracking system backed by sessions if the user cannot use cookies

• Polls (if allowed, users can create one or more polls on their messages)

D.1.3.5 Advanced usability features

• Post notification system, which can send notifications via email and RSS

• Forum and thread subscription system with an easy-to-use control panel that allows users to subscribe and unsubscribe from forums and threads

D.1.4. Recommended Open Source Groupware Projects

Many options are available in the open source forum software space. The most popular forum software is available on the LAMP platform and is written in PHP. We recommend phpBB because of its feature set, stability, and large installed user base, although vBulletin and Ultimate Bulletin Board are also viable choices. In the J2EE space, we recommend mvnForum, but we also consider JForum to be a solid choice.

D.1.4.1 phpBB

phpBB is a database-driven bulletin board package written in PHP. It works with major database servers, including MySQL, Access (via ODBC), MS-SQL, and PostgreSQL. It is user and administrator friendly, highly customizable, and very scalable.

D.1.4.2 Product strengths

• It supports all basic features.

• It features an integrated search facility.

• It includes versatile user groups and forum permissions.

• It offers powerful and friendly administration features.

D.1.4.3 mvnForum

mvnForum is an easy-to-use and easy-to-administer bulletin board software program written in Java using JSPs and servlets. It works with any servlet container that supports JSP 1.2 and Servlet 2.3 standards.

D.1.4.4 Product strengths

• It supports all basic features.

• It offers an integrated search facility using Lucene.

• It provides up-to-date spam prevention methods.

• It includes friendly administration features.

D.1.4.5 Product weakness

• Better user documentation is needed.