Intranet Management Software Blog

As you might noticed, Claromentis Intranet Manager uses BBCode in some of its applications such as Forum Post and News.

BBCode was devised to provide a safer, easier and more limited way of allowing users to format their messages. Programmer convenience was certainly another factor, as BBCode is very simple to implement.

Some implementations of BBCode have suffered problems mainly user interface, Intranet users have already become accustomed using WYSIWYG editor.

Claromentis 5.6 introduces new way to handle with this situation from the programmer point of view there is no drawback, it is still an old BBCode but users get a WYSIWYG interface.

Check out our screenshot below:

Resources-Technical Claromentis 5.6, Design, intranet news, technology, user interface

An Intranet specialist Toby Ward has recently published his webinar about the future of Intranet (so called Intranet 2.0), highlighting how web 2.0 and social media is changing the corporate intranet. Interesting…

Prod-Intranet intranet, intranet 2.0, intranet software, intranets, web 2.0

During my working life of about 10 years, the economy has been growing. So it is only now that I am seeing first hand how organisations change in a contracting economy. For me, this difference is most obvious between organisations that have a sales team and a production team. This is because in a bull economy, it is the sales team that put pressure on the production team. However, in a bear economy, the opposite is true, with more pressure placed on the sales team to keep producing work for the production team.

This makes for interesting internal discussions, especially when organisations are looking at implementing a knowledge management tool such as Claromentis. I was in a meeting recently where after a fairly heated discussion between two internal divisions, I was asked which approach was better out of the two - talk about a tight rope to walk!

Of course, most of the time, both are right - in their own way. This is where the experience of someone who ahs implemented such solutions before, really shines.

Home knowledge management

Process Manager Icon

As my role involves coding more on the front-end development; such as interfaces and scripts; I have always been focusing on the new front-end development technologies such as mooTools and jQuery, and of course cross-browser compatibility issues; especially on the browser we all love-to-hate, Internet Explorer 6.

However we are proudly supporting all A grade browsers across multiple platforms thanks to our development team and innovative intranet platform.

You might be thinking what this has got to do with e-forms… Let me tell you:

Claromentis e-forms feature is part of our Process Manager product which enables you to create forms and assign workflows to them. As of today, I am going through the InfoCapture application (which handles e-form processes) with one of our e-form specialists. This is the first series of posts about learning e-forms feature of the Process Manager product.

With the help of flexible and easy-to-use interface, it is possible to create a complete and fully functioning form with couple of clicks. You can collect various data from various sources, not to mention your intranet users. For example, you can create an expense claim form and let your users fill the necessary areas in the form, even upload the scanned image file of the bill if you need. You can create your own support ticketing system and relief your support team’s workload on managing and dealing with support requests (our own Discover support portal using exactly the same system to manage hundreds of support requests we receive each month).

We always keep saying that we provide a flexible and highly expandable intranet software. Our core code is based entirely on PHP, which is another reason why it is so flexible. And we want to keep the same flexibility on forms as well. Therefore, our form builder enables you to assign CSS styling on every single element of a form. You are free to design your heart out and the system will nicely fetch the your style into your form. You can change the colour, the size, the border; pretty much everything a CSS code enables you. As far as I am aware, there are not many form builders in the market which offers you this level of flexibility.

So what is the advantage of this? First of all (your marketing department will love this), even your forms can carry your branding colours and look and feel. This is very important specially for international clients. You can’t imagine a classic Coca-Cola bottle in a purple can, can you?

In the next post, I am going to talk about workflows. Until then, thanks for reading. I hope this gives you a better understanding about the flexibility of our product.

E-form Services css, e-forms, process manager, user interface

It has been fascinating to watch the gradual shift of collaboration platforms over the last 5 or so years in particular, as

• intranet and extranet platforms have evolved
• the world has flattened
• open source has raised the value expectations across all of IT.

These three factors are in my experience combining to create a new agenda for our clients and ourselves.

The previous focus on IT, HR and Marcomms systems that were largely driven by content and obsessed by command and control has been replaced by a new engagement that is refreshing, inspirational and challenging to us all. The legacy remains, and is still valid - but is now a necessary substrate on which true value is built rather than a goal in itself.

At Claromentis we we see in our most engaging clients that are achieving high ROI on their investments a focus on:

• Process Execution
• The extended Enterprise
• Innovation
• Sustainability
• Compliance
• Pure Platforms not vendor products
• Open source extendability for rapid response

Collaboration agenda

This is a space in which Claromentis has been able to gain considerable market share as our major products and PHP based platform is proving an ideal environment for this new way in intranet and extranet deployment.

We are able to foster innovation and facilitate the rapid generation of  highly focussed open source applications within our framework, with the code either the property of our clients or available to all depending on the aims of our customers.

It is an exciting time in our company and we look forward to learning more from our most innovative customers, and to helping them discover new ways to interact and innovate.

Solutions online collaboration, open source

This article below is written by  Rob Reith our Country Director in Australia which I found it interesting although in some deployments Claromentis can indeed co-exist with Microsoft SharePoint.

Claromentis over SharePoint

While there are many reasons why a company would want to select Claromentis over SharePoint, we have produced this handout to highlight the critical differences between the Claromentis and SharePoint Knowledge Management solutions. In the context of this handout, a Knowledge Management Software system covers the following functionality;

-    Intranet software;
-    Extranet software;
-    Content Management software;
-    Document Management software;
-    Customer Relationship Management software;
-    Project Management software; and
-    Electronic Forms software.

Work with the owners of Claromentis

Did you know that when you are dealing with Claromentis, you deal with the owners of the business? As part of the original team to build Claromentis, our clients have direct access to the owners and developers of Claromentis. This allows clients to have a direct say into the development roadmap. This is in contrast to SharePoint resellers who have no vested interest in the software and are unlikely to be able to contact Microsoft for urgent changes.

Work with the owners of Claromentis, and be confident that your voice will be heard at the top

Work with the Knowledge Management Specialists

Did you know that Claromentis only works in the field of Knowledge Management? We live and breathe knowledge management and are active in knowledge management conferences and forums. This is in contrast with many SharePoint resellers, who offer a wide range of software solutions, and will not have the degree of specialty as Claromentis.

Work with the Knowledge Management specialists and get better results

Work with more features

Did you know that over and above the Document Management, Intranet, Extranet and Content Management features, Claromentis also offers Project Management and Customer Relationship functionality where SharePoint does not offer either?

Work with the Knowledge Management software that offers more

Work with flexible technology

Did you know that Claromentis runs on Windows or Linux giving you flexibility whereas SharePoint runs on only their own proprietary server and code? This means you have complete control over your IT environment and ensures your Total Cost of Ownership remains low.

Work with software that puts you in complete control

Work with better Electronic Forms Management

Did you know that Claromentis offers an International Standards Organisation (ISO) compatible and integrated electronic forms module where with SharePoint it is optional? In our experience, forms are critical for any size company, and that’s why we include them out of the box.

Work with the company that understands business

Work with integrated Search

Did you know that while Claromentis offers a fully integrated and advanced searching feature, SharePoint charge separately for their search engine?  Image 1.11 shows the complexity of the SharePoint solution (notice the multiple components that have different licensing conditions) which can cause budgeting and resourcing issues as your organisation grows.

Work with a company that keeps it simple and scalable

SharePoint Pricing Structure

Partners Claromentis, commercial, intranet, intranet consultancy, software

The UK government has said it will accelerate the use of open source software in public services.

Tom Watson MP, minister for digital engagement, said open source software would be on a level playing field with proprietary software such as Windows. Open source software will be adopted “when it delivers best value for money”, the government said.

It added that public services should where possible avoid being “locked into proprietary software”. Continue reading

Source: BBC

Solutions news, Old - Industry News, open source

Delivering a successful Intranet or large IT project is not easy. Based on our experience they hugely depend on these 4 cornerstones:

Sponsor

Sponsor is usually coming from executive level with strong vision to transform the business. It is important to keep the sponsor up-to-date with every stage of the project, from planning, development and deployment. Her or his influence and active participation can make such a huge different. Need a practical example? Organise brief speech during the launch, record his/her video, and write in the executive blog or press releases just to name a few.

Champions

Champions, power users or cohort is a collection of individuals who represent their departments or business unit. They get early administration training and it is their job to introduce the new system and train other users. Just like in any other team building exercise it is important to choose the right member of the team. These are certain quality worth considering: bright, creative, helpful, good with computers. Champion group is acting like a fuel during the early adoption.

Vendor

Choosing a software vendor for a large IT project is like choosing a life partner. er.. maybe I am exaggerate a little, but there is some truth in it. Ending up with the wrong vendor can be frustrating and greatly impact your business. Sometime it’s not just about the product but look for extras and advice they could bring to the table. Do they have enough experience? Are they easy to get hold of? How’s the after-sales service? Are you tighten into a proprietary technology with no future?

User

Understand what the end users wants and translate them into the product is a winning formula. Get out from your cubicle and talk to all users from every corner of the department especially the one who sit nice and quietly in the corner. Ask them do they get the benefit? Keep an eye on usability issues, sometime they just not knowing the thing they are looking for is there. Monitor the changes; avoid common mistakes, keep them happy, ultimately they are the reason why we’re having this project.

Services Claromentis, internal customer communications, intranet, intranet consultancy, intranet software discussions

It is a shocking reality, many major corporations still running their entire business on Excel.  Let’s admit it,  Excel is being used on almost anything,  from managing company database, claiming our expenses, accident reporting or perhaps ordering lunch ? Don’t get me wrong Excel is a powerful tool but it gets over-used in business.

Recently one of our clients, a major out-door clothing brand is taking a leap from a tired, out-of-control spreadsheets to a complete web application. We developed a store audit application where a tech rep who visited retail stores can write, and sending an audit report directly to the central database through a web form.  Appropriate finance managers will get notification allowing them to complete the financial details. Data submitted are audited, stored in central database, accessible through corporate Intranet, ready to be extracted by appropriate managers for monthly or quarterly reporting with a simple click.

Now try to get that on Excel !

Products Add new tag, e-forms, internal customer communications, online collaboration, Prod-Intranet, software

Many companies want to embrace Enterprise 2.0, the same spirit that leverage UGC (User Generated Content), but most of them are unsuccessful. The Company Intranet has been seen as a formal platform where the information is coming from top to bottom, approval required type information and majority of staff having ‘read only’ rights. The main question has been how to create a sense of ownership, collaboration, communication,participation, and excitement when the information is majority coming in one-way direction. Let’s admit it top to bottom communication is boring, who wants to read the latest CEO’s deal or corporate press releases and why should they get excited about it?

One of our clients came up with this idea,  a “Community Portal” where information is shared outside a rigid Intranet. An area where all users can create content and mashing up publicly available media such as personal Blog, YouTube Video or Flickr  Photos within “Community Portal” in a corporate Intranet.

The result? Brilliant! Some users are posting YouTube video from their latest field trip, pictures from Flickr album from recent staff weddings, or some charity work they did recently. The staff feel their work is appreciated by getting feedback & comments from others,  and the executive get a glimpse on what their staff have  done in projects and events that really engage them.

It’s far from the anarchy that most management are often concerned about. It’s fun, interesting, and it makes an Intranet a place to visit everyday.

Solutions Claromentis, intranet software, intranets, online collaboration