Two new conferencing tools--Collabra Share and OpenMind--fill a niche between simple E-mail and Lotus Notes
Rex Baldazo and Stanford Diehl
E-mail is a great tool for person-to-person messaging, but it falls flat when you're coordinating a discussion among a group. Anyone who has ever cobbled together a group discussion using cc:Mail understands the problem: Traditional E-mail packages just weren't designed with workgroups in mind.
Two brand-new workgroup applications--Collabra Share and Attachmate's OpenMind--fill the gap, meeting workgroup-conferencing needs that aren't addressed by simple E-mail packages and for which Lotus Notes is overkill. Both Collabra Share and OpenMind build a structured environment for interactive discussions and information delivery. But the two products stake out different grou
nd. Collabra Share delivers basic, easy-to-use workgroup conferencing over an existing LAN, while OpenMind offers a client/server platform for conferencing, document management, and customized work-flow applications.
We put Collabra Share and OpenMind to work across our editorial workgroup and gauged how well each met our own needs. The two programs differ in cost and functionality and represent two distinct alternatives to match specific workgroup requirements. If you demand even more from a workgroup platform, you should probably consider the Notes investment.
Collabra Share
Version 1.0 of Collabra Share delivers basic BBS-style conferencing over your existing network. It requires a DOS-file-compatible LAN operating system, such as NetWare or Windows for Workgroups, and runs on Windows 3.1; a Macintosh client is planned for this year. It doesn't support automated work-flow or document management features, but for such tasks as generating interactive workgroup discussions
, refining ideas via collaboration and feedback, and distributing information across a department, Collabra Share is an effective, easy-to-use tool.
You set up various forums to hold related messages, and within each forum you can further group messages into categories (
see the screen
). Within a message you can put enclosures, such as a spreadsheet file or even an executable program. Double-clicking on the enclosure icon launches the appropriate application.
Collabra Share does not currently support application-specific viewers (a Word file viewer, for instance), so you can't view an attached file if you don't have the application it was created in. We got around this limitation somewhat by attaching Common Ground documents with viewers embedded in the file, but even a low-end conferencing system should include some standard viewers for the most popular applications.
The program has some convenient features for managing forums. You have the option of automatically del
eting threads from a forum, based on either how old the threads are or when the forum exceeds a set size limit. This is controllable by forum, so each forum can have its own storage policy. And new participants are automatically prompted to join forums that are open to them.
Security is Collabra Share's weak point. Its forums must be installed in a full-access public directory so that all users have access. And the administration tools have no password protection, so the only security for those tools is what's provided by a local PC or the network. Collabra Software claims this problem will be remedied.
With Collabra Share's Enterprise Extension, you can extend your Collabra workgroup to participants beyond the reach of your LAN. You can join VIM (Vendor-Independent Messaging) or MAPI (Messaging API) E-mail users even if they don't license a local copy of Collabra Share. A Mail Agent checks any specified forum at an interval that you schedule. At the appointed time, the Agent checks the forum to
see if new messages have been posted, and if so sends them out as mail messages to remote users. Any contributions received in the mailbox from those remote users is then posted to the forum.
A remote site can also establish its own Collabra Share workgroup and replicate specified forums across E-mail. Like the Mail Agent, the Replicator Agent gets scheduled, and at set times it scans the forum, sending new messages to the remote Replicator. The remote Replicator does the same thing, so the two copies of the forum are kept synchronized.
Living with Collabra Share
We used Collabra Share for a couple of months and effectively managed some real work with it. We created forums for hardware testing, software reviews, benchmarks, and other key topics. We posted schedules, passed files, and distributed memos that normally would have gone out on paper. Of course, our lifeblood is generating articles for publication, so the lack of document versioning and control was a serious lim
itation for us.
We also noted some first-version immaturity. For instance, while Collabra Share allows the copying of threads both within a forum and among different forums, there is no move option, so after copying a thread you have to go back to the original and delete it. And when you delete a user with the administration tools, the identification file does not automatically get deleted, so the user can continue to participate in forums. You have to manually delete the user identification file.
The program's strengths are its easy setup, intuitive interface, and connectivity to remote sites. If you need a simple workgroup conferencing system, Collabra Share is an effective solution.
Attachmate's OpenMind
OpenMind stakes a middle ground between the basic conferencing capabilities of Collabra Share and the high-end groupware functionality of Lotus Notes. The OpenMind server currently runs only on Windows NT, and only Windows clients are supported, although a Mac cl
ient should be available by the time you read this.
OpenMind's conferencing interface takes some getting used to. Conference topics, called sections, can contain multiple levels of subsections beneath them. This can get confusing when you get a layered view of the sections you've traversed along with the subsections available from the current section (
see the screen
). The threads reside at the lower part of the screen and follow a familiar folder metaphor. Our workgroup found Collabra Share's interface more intuitive than OpenMind's.
As with Collabra Share, you can attach files to postings with OpenMind, but OpenMind supports a variety of viewers, allowing participants to view documents and spreadsheets without having the creating applications. If you want true document management, OpenMind tracks multiple document versions. You place a document in a folder, and it is stored on the server. You can then lock the document to make it read-only. When you update the document, a n
ew version is created in OpenMind. The server stores only the changes to the original file, not multiple versions of the complete document.
You can also work on a file locally and then update the document from OpenMind. The document and discussions about it can all reside in the same parent folder. We found this structure an excellent vehicle for generating collaborative documents.
You can't extend discussions to E-mail-only participants, but OpenMind does let you replicate databases remotely to bring in other workgroups that license the OpenMind package. A publishing server forwards specified sections to a subscribing server. Any server can act as both a publishing server and a receiving server. You can connect to other servers via TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, NetBIOS, or a dial-in connection. A single user can also dial directly into the server for remote access.
If you need to create customized applications, OpenMind's support of OLE Automation puts it beyond Collabra Share and into closer competi
tion with Lotus Notes. OpenMind Automation exposes 10 discrete objects, including the search engine or any specific section, folder, document, message, or attachment. An external program can then use OLE Automation functions to access and manipulate the objects.
For instance, the AddSearch function can launch the OpenMind search engine from an external program. You then use the Find function to return the results of the search. You can also use OpenMind's document-versioning capabilities to create a customized work-flow system out of other OLE-enabled applications.
Like Collabra Share, OpenMind suffers from some version 1.0 flaws. We found that users couldn't change a null password, for instance, and we couldn't get the SAP (Service Advertisement Protocol) to work; SAP advertises the SPX name to clients, so they don't have to know the server's address. And we experienced a couple of GPFs (General Protection Faults) on the Windows 3.1 clients. Fortunately, the NT server application was rock solid
, so we never had to worry about losing data.
Groupware Alternatives
We found that OpenMind was not quite as inviting as Collabra Share for generating discussions within our workgroup, but many collaborative projects require the kind of document tracking and control that OpenMind handles well. You simply don't have document management features within Collabra Share or most other low-end conferencing packages.
OpenMind is an impressive release that we plan to keep up and running in the reviews department at BYTE. But if your applications require multiplatform clients; large, centralized databases; or integrated E-mail, you will have to step up to Lotus Notes.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTS
Collabra Share 1.0
Workgroup Edition/10-user license $699
Enterprise Extension $899 per server
Collabra Software, Inc.
1091 North Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
(800) 474-7427
(415) 940-
6400
fax: (415) 940-6440
E-mail: info@collabra.com
OpenMind 1.0
Starter Kit (five clients and one server) $995
Single-client license $295
Bundle purchase of 100 clients or more $225 per client
Attachmate Corp.
1000 Alderman Dr.
Alpharetta, GA 30202
(800) 348-3221
(404) 442-4000
fax: (404) 442-4366
IF YOU NEED
IF YOU NEED
: Basic group-conferencing capabilities with file attachments
FOR EXAMPLE
...A departmental workgroup requiring interactive
discussions to generate ideas, solicit feedback, and distribute files and
information
THEN BUY
: Collabra Share
IF YOU NEED
: Group conferencing with document management features
FOR EXAMPLE
...A product development team creating collaborative
design specifications, manuals, and marketing materials
THEN BUY
: OpenMind
IF YOU NEED
: High-end workgroup features, including extensive knowledge bas
es
FOR EXAMPLE
...A technical-support department needing access to a
variety of technical resources and a customized call-tracking system
THEN BUY
: Lotus Notes
screen_link (30 Kbytes)
The notebook icons at the top of the screen represent forums. Double-clicking on the Reviews Status Forum opens the lower window. Discussion categories (e.g., March Reviews and February Schedule) appear in the upper left section of this window, with the threads from the selected category listed in the upper right section. The bottom section of the window displays the selected message. Double-clicking on the enclosure icon (labeled feb95rev.exe) launches the attachment. The red flags indicate unread messages.
screen_link (34 Kbytes)
Just below the toolbar are the section buttons. Below these are the subsection buttons (e.g., Process and Monthly Meeting). When you click on a section button, the lower half of the screen displays the contents of the section. Messages are contained within the folder icons. Note the multiple document versions of feb95rev.xls. Double-clicking on the document icon launches the Excel viewer or the creating application if it is available locally. Comments about the document are kept in a parallel folder. The Section Map at right gives an overall view of the hierarchy.
Rex Baldazo is a BYTE technical editor who previously developed a workgroup system for collaborative documents. Stanford Diehl is director of BYTE reviews. You can reach them on the Internet or BIX as
rbaldazo@bix.com
and
sdiehl@bix.com
, respectively.
Workgroup Conferencing
