Online collaboration has become central to many forward thinking businesses because of its potential hard cost savings and positive impact on efficiency. New technology has enabled companies to collaborate with partners, suppliers, vendors and internally in ways never before possible.

If people can "meet" with online collaboration from the comfort of their own homes or offices, why send them on the road in the first place? If information can be shared through live databases, why meet in the first place? As companies link their operations together through online collaboration, communication is expedited and the value chain of the organization is extended.

For example, supply chains are enhanced by online collaboration that enables authorized parties both inside and outside the organization to check on order status, and expected delivery dates.

Online collaboration includes such applications as document sharing and editing, document libraries, contacts/tasks/calendar sharing, surveys, instant messaging, video/web conferencing, whiteboarding, joint brainstorming, multimedia presentations, and links to other websites.

Some online collaboration tools are even free. Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), included with Microsoft Small Business Server, is a leading example. Some of the features are:

• Document collaboration- Check out and edit documents, version tracking with version rollback, document library support, and support for multiple content types;
• Calendars- Access extensive calendar views and support for recurring events/all-day events; integrate shared calendars into Outlook and overlay with other calendars to be viewed as one;
• E-mail integration- Enable document libraries, discussion boards, calendars, and announcements to get new email postings;
• People and groups lists- Unify finding, communicating with and managing people;
• Blogs- Post articles and comments, and generate Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds:
• Surveys- Assess everything from employee contentment to customer satisfaction.

For more advanced functionality, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) carries both server and client access license costs. In addition to the items above, it offers advanced workflow templates and content management capabilities, records management, and more powerful search capabilities.

To select the right online collaboration system, first, decide what you want it to do. Make broad, first-cut choices around top priorities.

Then, match your budget to the priorities. Free or low-cost options may work initially, with subsequent expansion into more sophisticated, and costly, applications. Prove the concept through a small scale implementation before spending time and money designing and redesigning a system that doesn’t fit.

Finally, look at products. If you work on a Microsoft platform, you may want to compare and contrast SharePoint WSS and MOSS applications, which work easily with other Microsoft applications.

Once you’ve focused on a purpose and technology, consider hiring a online collaboration specialist, take a class to learn more, and do some online research (including web search, blogs and media reports) to see what’s being said about prospective products.

(This article was excerpted from Gene Smith’s February 2009 Denver Business Journal technology column.)

Tags: Collaboration, Just Tips, SharePoint

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm and is filed under SharePoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.