A sorbusASP application that provides integrated e-mail and group scheduling, secure sharing of documents, real-time collaboration, team-based contact management, task management, and easily created collaborative discussions.
Collaborative computing has been defined in many ways. Some people would say collaboration is e-mail, others shared diaries and documents, or even interaction with Internet-based applications. All of these answers are correct. Collaboration is, in effect, the integration of many different technologies into a single application or environment to facilitate information sharing and information management.
The key business benefits of using collaborative computing are:
- Bridging islands of information, thereby avoiding information silos.
- Extensive and secure communication through many different mediums, which is critical as companies increase their use of the Internet and other evolving communications mediums.
- Storage of information in a central location, so that individuals both inside and outside the company can access it.
- To enhance communication and access to information across organisational and geographic barriers, thereby empowering the knowledge worker who needs to be able to communicate quickly and efficiently from anywhere.
Over the past several years, companies have begun to view messaging and collaboration as critical to their competitiveness, team communication, and employee productivity. Indeed, many successful companies today rely on messaging and collaboration to manage their communication and information needs. This in turn is increasing the productivity of "knowledge workers" by enabling communication anytime, anywhere.
Advanced technologies, such as real-time communications, instant messaging, and support for wireless and unified messaging, are establishing the foundation for new avenues of collaboration that will further help companies improve their communication and productivity. At the same time, however, companies are under increasing pressure to lower the total cost of ownership of Information Technology.
sorbus COLLABORATOR is a complete solution for Web-based messaging, collaboration, information management and applications. It is much more than an e-mail application and delivers far richer functionality than free or low-cost Internet-based e-mail services, which are more suited to home than business users. sorbus COLLABORATOR provides integrated e-mail and group scheduling, secure sharing of documents, real-time collaboration, team-based contact management, task management, and easily created collaborative discussions. All this is delivered in a secure and high availability environment that will enable your company to realise the benefits of collaborative computing.
sorbus COLLABORATOR uses Microsoft Exchange, a powerful messaging server that provides a reliable and scalable solution for collaboration and information sharing. sorbus COLLABORATOR provides the full functionality of Microsoft Exchange without the cost and complexity of a traditional installation.
sorbus COLLABORATOR includes the Microsoft Outlook client that provides full e-mail, calendaring, group scheduling, document sharing, contact and task management, discussion groups and real-time collaboration functionality. Users benefit from an integrated, easy to use, user interface where the same Outlook tools for finding, viewing and organising e-mail are also used to manage personal and team information. In addition to sending and receiving e-mail internally and via the Internet, you can use Outlook to manage your calendar, contacts and tasks, and to schedule meetings with your colleagues. Users will receive automatic warnings as soon as their mailbox is nearing capacity.
sorbus COLLABORATOR also supports Outlook Web Access, enabling any authorised computer or mobile device that has a browser and Internet connectivity to access sorbus COLLABORATOR. Users of Outlook Web Access can read e-mail, arrange meetings and share calendars, contacts and information.
Calendaring & scheduling
The calendar (diary) facility forms the basis of group scheduling. Every sorbus COLLABORATOR user has a personal calendar, access to which is controlled by the user. In addition to a variety of access levels, the calendar facility supports both public and private (to the user) entries.
The scheduling facility enables users to plan and organise meetings, check the availability of potential attendees (and resources such as meeting rooms) and automatically generates meeting invitations. All of which ensures that the scheduling of meetings is trouble-free and simple, and enables users to work as a team.
Collaboration data is stored in Exchange public folders, which are centrally managed as part of sorbus COLLABORATOR. Public folders may hold a variety of information types, such as documents, presentations, discussion groups and Outlook items (for example, messages, contacts or tasks). Exchange is especially well suited for sharing Microsoft Office documents (such as Word documents and Excel spreadsheets) via public folders. The Outlook client provides an integrated view of the documents held within these folders, which may be customised to suit the needs of your team.
Combine public folders with Outlook Contact Activity Tracking and you automatically have a solution for customer tracking. For example, create an Exchange public folder to store the Outlook contacts that your sales team works with and then set permissions on the folder to provide the right level of access to team members and others in your company.
At this point, it is easy to set up Outlook's Contact Activity Tracking so that all of the tasks, documents and forthcoming meetings associated with your customers are available to everyone on the team. Team members can even synchronise this public folder for offline use, making it easy to update the information when they are out of the office. Once you open the customer contact in your Contacts folder, you will find all your interactions with that customer on the Activities tab.
The mobile workforce is one of many changing work styles that are here to stay. sorbus COLLABORATOR provides flexible and easy-to-use access for the mobile worker. Those using the full Outlook client have the facility to work offline, where an automatically synchronised local copy of their mailbox (and any user-selected folders) is maintained. This enables the user to work when disconnected from sorbus COLLABORATOR. If the mobile computer has Internet connectivity, the mobile worker may exchange e-mail and/or synchronise with sorbus COLLABORATOR over a secure connection.
Through Outlook Web Access, mobile workers can enjoy the equivalent messaging, collaboration and information management facilities of their office-based co-workers via any authorised computer or mobile device that has a browser and Internet connectivity.
- Complete solution for Web-based messaging, collaboration, information management and applications.
- Fully functional Microsoft Exchange service using Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Web Access clients.
- Features include e-mail, calendaring, group scheduling, real-time collaboration, contact and task management, document sharing and discussion groups (using public folders) - all provided as standard. The integral use of public folders enables easy access to information and the ability to share knowledge with other users.
- Companies may use one of their existing Internet domain names for e-mail addressing. Alternatively, they may register a new domain name or use the default address format of: user@companyname.sorbusASP.net
- Centralised address books and distribution lists provide easy access to all your employees, customers and suppliers.
- A healthy 100Mb of information storage per user is provided as standard. The aggregated storage (for example, a 50 user company would have 5Gb allocated) is shared between all personal mailboxes and public folders. Additional server-based storage is optionally available in units of 50Mb.
- Users can individually extend their storage of non-critical information through using local disk storage on their personal computer.
- Scanning of all inbound and outbound e-mail (including attachments) for predefined viruses to ensure that individual users, or external e-mail recipients, do not propagate viruses. Infected messages are either cleaned or quarantined.
- Flexible but secure connectivity options (authenticated by a trusted third party) and full support for mobile workers using either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access.
- Predictable costs based on a per user monthly subscription.
- There is no user limit imposed by sorbus COLLABORATOR.
- Available on a 24x7 basis subject to the agreed SLA.
- Enhanced by sorbus BASE - as standard.
The decision to use an application service such as sorbus COLLABORATOR allows a company to focus on its core competencies, secure in the knowledge that an expert external resource is delivering outstanding levels of service and customer care without all the logistical and financial complexities of an in-house solution.
In summary, sorbus COLLABORATOR delivers a comprehensive messaging and collaboration platform that is easily scalable should the company require additional users or identify additional requirements. To extend the business benefits of collaborative computing and enhance the rich functionality afforded by sorbus COLLABORATOR, sorbus E-FAX, sorbus CRM and sorbus WEB-HOST are the perfect companions.
