Claromentis Intranet Software Blog

As being a provider of an intranet software and its side solutions; we develop, deploy and deliver.. an intranet software… Recently one of our clients requested a quotation for an enhanced social networking platform to enable a possible collaboration of their consumers and staff under a single social networking platform. Personally, I think this is a great idea! Specially in an internet age, I can not think of any better solution to improve your public face than this. But there is one small problem… Our software was not developed while keeping the social networking platforms in mind. In other words, we are not the providers of a social networking platform. So how should we answer the client?

To find an answer to this, we did have an internal meeting today to narrow down our solutions and decided the following options:

1. Find a reliable third party social networking platform software, buy the software, customize it for the client and resell it.
2. Create a partnership with a third party company delivering social networking platforms and work on their software together with the owner of the software and deliver the result to the client. Consider the possibilities of learning the social networking platform development and combine it with our own product.
3. Develop our own bespoke social networking platform and deliver it to the client.
4. Say no.

The first three options have their pros and cons, while the 4th option is something we don’t like to go for, therefore I am going to focus on the first 3 options.

We found a perfect software delivering exactly what the client has asked for. It ticks almost every boxes based on the client’s requirements sheet. The software is open source and can be acquired with different pricing structures; starting from free up to good amount of money; depending on the package. In my opinion, the most expensive package, which is still relatively cheap based on its functionalities, is the one we should go for. The main reason behind my defence for this software is it works perfectly, delivers exactly what the client is asking for, the software itself is open source so we can modify it the way we want it, customize it to suit the client’s needs and deliver it to the client. The client gets what they want which works and we are happy to exceed the client’s expectations.

However there were several concerns about this option. The main concern, which is the main reason I am writing this article for is the software is actually an open source software. Some of our team members considered this as a negative point, because you may not get any support for the software. However what was forgotten in this concern was actually the provider of the software is releasing the core code of the software and any additional plug-ins (which we will need all of them) costs money. What took my attention was the word ‘open source’ made them think that this software may be unstable or developed by a student in couple of nights for fun and may well be forgotten by its provider. What I find strange is this thought would have never come to mind if the software was released by companies like Apple, Google, Sun or even Facebook or Digg team, just because they are a well known company and/or charging millions for it… For example, Mozilla may well stop supporting Firefox if it was not financially possible for them to keep the development of it.

But there were some other points which I found logical. Up-to-date, we delivered our own software which we know inside out. We are able to answer every question about it because we developed, deployed and delivered it. We are responsible to support our clients for the software they bought from us. What if something goes wrong with this third party software? OK, we have our own developers who can fix many problems, but to address a problem may take 5 minutes if the problem is occured on our software whereas it may well take 5 hours to address the same problem on some other software, if you are not familiar with it, and we are not talking about couple of hundred lines of code. This third party software is huge, so its’ codebase.

The other unspoken concern, which again I agree with, was the feeling we will have from the result. If the client loves this third party solution and sends their greetings to us, we would not feel the same level of satisfaction and proud as much as if they did the same for our intranet software, because simply what we delivered is NOT ours. We may have done a good job on finding the correct solution, customizing it and deploying it, but these are not actually what the client is requesting. These are expected standard results whereas the capabilities of the software are the requirement itself.

The second option is creating a partnership with a local social networking software developer and work on the actual software itself together. By doing this, there will be a mutual level of knowledge sharing. On our side, we will be learning how to deal with social networking management and implementation of these kind of platforms on corporate environments. And so many other stuff that I am not able to share with you for the moment. Because this will be a partnership, the provider will be reachable, therefore it will be possible for us to mash both of our solutions on one platform. Our client is already using our intranet solution and they are happy with it. Rather than giving them a complete new solution, which does not have the same look and feel as our own software, may be seen confusing to them (which is what may happen with the first solution, but again it is an open source software, so we should be able to customize it).

There is already one company we are considering to have a partnership for this project and we are in talks with them. I can not give you more details about this for the moment.

The third solution is a less likely to achive in a timescale given by the client. Our own software has years of experience and development history and as I said at the beginning of my article, it was not developed as a social networking platform. The strange thing is our software can do many of the client’s requirements on an individual basis, but was not designed to use these features on a public website with social networking ideas in mind.

You are probably asking “So, which option did you go for?“, well, we are still considering these and other  options and there are no decisions as of now. What I wanted to share with this article was what may be thought when we hear the word “open source“.

Can/should open source be considered as professional? How far professional and successful it can go? Can commercial products be open source and if they are open source, are they still commercial? Is open source turning out to be a marketing term because of the success of Mozilla Firefox?

Probably harder questions to answer than the meaning of life.

Clients, Communities and Case studies, Intranet Development and API, Open Source Intranets open source, Open Source Intranets, Social, Social Networking

I have recently been working on one of our large clients intranet deployment in the USA and I wanted to write how amazed I am when I see a client finding different ways of customization our intranet software to suit their needs.

As of Claromentis 5.4, we have developed a new feature called Smart Objects. This feature helps Claromentis users importing content to their intranet pages from different sources within Claromentis, such as News, Forum messages and Document lists. No longer will users have to navigate to separate areas to see application files as opposed to web based content, for example. A dynamic view of disparate content and objects is possible from just one location.

This company is part of one of the worlds largest clothing manufacturers, and they are using our software to improve the communication between different departments within the organization, as well as simplifying the process of managing documents securely, all within one instance. Departments varies from variety of sources, such as Sales, Finance, Warranty, RD&D, EMEA and more… Without a doubt, a web based intranet solution like Claromentis was the best choice for an international company. Having its employees across the world makes the importance of communication and document management through the Internet was an appropriate choice.

Because Claromentis is permission based intranet software, it is possible to hide your content from different departments using the same intranet software. You simply create groups and roles within Claromentis and identify your content (documents and news) to be shown to a certain number of users.

As you can imagine, a company like this literally has tens of thousands of documents stored within the software, so making these files to be found easily is not an easy job. That’s where the Smart Objects feature is going to make this process a lot easier than our competitors’ solutions.

Let me explain how different parts of Claromentis can work in collaboration to solve complex intranet problems. In this example, I would like to share a document folder containing financial sales targets of this month and a list of products needs to be highlighted during sales campaigns. I would also like to share news belonging the sales department and I need to show all of the above content visiting the Sales Department home page.

In the above example, I am actually aiming to solve my problem by sourcing the content from the following corporate solutions.

• Document Manager
• Content Manager
• Permission Based Intranet Management
• Permission Based News Management

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Smart Objects enables you to show contents from different parts of Claromentis, and this is exactly how this client actually solved this complex collaboration issue.

1. Define Groups and Roles (SALES > Sales Managers | Sales Team) and assign users to the appropriate level.
2. Using Document Manager application, store my files into one folder created for the special sales campaign.
3. Change the permissions of all my files and make the “financial sales targets” viewable only by Sales Managers and the remaining files viewable by people belonging the SALES group.
4. Using Web Based Content Management Solution, create an intranet page and fill up the content areas, such as TITLE, SUMMARY, GOALS, REWARDS.
5. Using Smart Objects, embed the document folder containing my files into an appropriate space within my intranet page.
6. Again Using Smart Objects, embed the Sales news (blogs) channel.
7. Save the page and share the web address of the page with my staff.

What will happen is people who has an access to view the page I just created will only need to remember one web address (which can be pasted into an e-mail message) and when they click on that link, all of the information they have a permission to see will be visible to them. Remember that we have embedded one single folder containing both financial targets as well as documents containing products need to be highlighted? Because I set the permissions for my documents, Sales team will only see the files they need to see and managers will also be able to access the financial target documents, even though they are in the same folder and I have embedded that folder into my Intranet Page.

All within one single page. How Smart is that?!

Claromentis around the world, Clients, Communities and Case studies, Products, intranet applications, technical complex intranet management, document management, intranet, intranet applications, intranet blogging, news management, permissions, smart object

Visual Interface SunPower

Exceeding client expectations is one of the major key parts for sustainable success, specially during times of economic downturn.

As an interface developer working for one of the best corporate intranet software providers, I need to make sure that a client is satisfied when it comes to their expectations - whereas the client needs to make sure that the software provider is delivering results on time, to specifications, correctly and efficiently.

A comprehensive intranet solution like Claromentis has so many different aspects. For a client, they receive one piece of a software suite and most, if not all, that matters to them is whether it works or not.

Although the other side of the story is complex - in essence the sales process has set expectations, and I need to deliver against them. To help me I have mentors of course, and developers - but to be honest coding intranet interfaces from approved designs is a job I can normally just get on with. So how can I make sure that I exceed customer expectations..? A lot needs to take place before I code a single line ..

• Marketing: Make sure that the product is described accurately, and is the current release not vapor ware - a potential source of miss-matched expectations, in my experience.
• Quotation: Understand the client expectations, analyze the work involved and quote correctly. Try to get technical Claromentis input here!
• Review: Review the response from the client to the quotation. If positive but we need something else, plan any future requirements for delivery of the product and allocate to a release schedule.
• Design and develop: Here I go - create the interface based on client’s requirements.
• Custom development: Develop the custom functionality if required and embed into the product. A  review process takes place here, with client staff, development and myself. We involve the account manager wherever possible.
• Configure: Set the product for review on a staging server and make sure it is working to final specifications.
• Support: Assist the client on solving complex intranet software issues.

The important part here is setting the expectations of… both sides actually. It is important to assure the client that they will get the software as promised whereas our staff should have enough material to  deliver what is required - and not something else entirely!

It is fun though - getting it right takes talent and a lot of creativity… but we do create some great designs for information management in a VI!

Clients, Communities and Case studies, General Intranet Posts intranet development

When it comes to find the easiest solution to manage intranet and extranet content, Claromentis has some great nifty features for users on every level.

Today, almost all content management solutions offer you a WYSIWYG text based content editor, which means what you create on the editor section is what you will see on the actual page. Cool, but nothing special!

What makes Claromentis special is the way it interacts with your content. Let me explain you a bit further:

In Claromentis, it is possible to create templates and define editable areas. Let’s say you have a page which contains 3 sections; one for the menu, one for the main content and one for the links of websites you visit frequently. I also presume that you would like to have some images within your main content section.

With Claromentis easy-to-use content management software, you define the areas above and their field type. For consistency purposes, you wouldn’t want your intranet and/or users to change the overall look and feel of your template, so you wouldn’t want them to change the main title font size or colour. So you can define the header section of your main content area as ’string’, which means your users will only be able to change the content of the header section but not its styling.

You have your template ready and its sections defined. The next step is populating the actual content. How would you do this? Simple. Just look at the following picture and you will get the idea:

Easy to use content management solution

It is also possible to create areas within your template which are not editable by users. This could be a company slogan or a footer area which contains company address information.

Customizable Intranet Software: Works the way you do…

Products, Technical Support, Visual Interface CMS

Babcock simplifies policy management and improves employee communications with help from Claromentis.

Babcock Case Study

With a client list including the Ministry of Defence and local authorities as well as major private sector companies, Babcock Infrastructure Services (BIS) manages over 15,000 properties across the United Kingdom. Part of Babcock International Group PLC, the Company services nationwide contracts both directly and through subsidiary joint ventures Debut Services (South West) Ltd, Babcock DynCorp Ltd, and mouchelbabcock education.

Reed the full version of Babcock Case Study.

Clients, Communities and Case studies, Corporate News, General Intranet Posts Babcock, Case Study

Google Talkabout Logo

You can do lot of interesting stuff with Google Talk like get alert notifications, save bookmarks to delicious, manage web calendars, set reminders, write blogs, and so much more. Such features can be easily integrated into Google Talk through ‘bots’ which, in simple English, are like virtual friends who are online 24×7 and will always respond with a smile to your questions or requests

Here are some of the most useful ‘bots’ that transform Google Talk into a more useful program:

1. imfeeds@gmail.com – Add this IM Feeds bot as your Google Talk buddy and you’ll be able to read any blog or website that syndicates content via RSS feeds.

To subscribe to a website in GTalk, simply send a new IM message that says “sub abc.com” where abc.com is the address of the website / blog you want to read inside Google Talk.

2. friendfeed@imified.com – This secret bot lets you post to FriendFeed from Google Talk. You may submit either hyperlinks or text messages.

3. imified@imified.com – This imified bot turns Google Talk into a real powerhouse.

You can post bookmarks to delicious, send messages to Twitter, submit blog entries to WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger, manage events in Google Calendar, shorten long URLs, run whois and so on.

4. inezhabot@gmail.com – Like IM Feeds, iNezha bot helps you read feeds inside Google Talk but this is slightly more versatile. For instance, you can simply say “digg” and it will show a list of all feeds that match that search term so you don’t have to type (or copy-paste) feed addresses.

5. Translation – This is a free service from Google that helps you translate words from a foreign language into your native language. Just add the relevant bot (e.g. hi2en@bot.talk.google.com for Hindi to English or en2hi@bot.talk.google.com for English to Hindi) as your buddy, send him a message and it will get translated instantly.

6. Set Task Reminders – If you need to remember something important, Google Talk can send you reminders for that event.

Just add timer to your Twitter friend’s list and then add twitter@twitter.com to your buddy list in Gtalk. Now if you want to get a reminder after 50 minutes, send a direct message to twitter like “d timer 50 pick kids from school” and a reminder will automatically pop up in your Google Talk after 50 minutes.

7. Transliteration – If you want to chat in your mother tongue (like Hindi or Tamil) but feel more comfortable using the English keyboard, Google Transliteration bot will come in handy.

For instance, add en2hi.translit@bot.talk.google.com to you friend’s list in GTalk and all messages you type in English will get transliterated in the language of your choice. Available only for a few Indian languages.

Source: macsimumnews.com

General Intranet Posts Bot, Google, Google Talk

E-mail Standards Project

Most of us are aware of “web standards” and its affects on creating “user friendly web based intranet software“, but it is very hard to say the same about the “e-mail standards“. Are the newsletters and announcment mails you send properly displayed on all e-mail clients? If you would like to know about it more, you can visit Email Standards Project website.

You can find very detailed information from Microsoft Outlook to Mozilla Thunderbird, From Google Mail to Yahoo! Mail and other web based e-mail clients. There is also a blog for this project.

General Intranet Posts, intranet applications e-mail standards, web standards

Designers are independent. In work, mindset and lifestyle. Yet in this Web age aren’t we losing independence? For most designers the first tool to start designing from is the Adobe suite, a quite impressive set of tools that help us to make our work easier. But don’t we rely too much on Adobe? For years people have been watching how Microsoft dominated the market. We lament that its applications are bloated and criticize its efforts to wipe away competitors. But instead of taking a stand, we continue to buy its products and we continue to moan.

We always have options. And in the design process we have them too. At the moment we don’t really know to what level open source applications can compete with Adobe. But with support, with independent minds and strong community involvement, the open source movement can grow. Competition is a part of the progress and so is the choice. We need to maintain a competitive arena in design. And we need good open source alternatives for the tools we use. Independent start-ups are the lifeblood of the industry and the breath of fresh air we all need.

But apart from Microsoft, Adobe and the latest computer system to run these applications, you may have problems setting up a professional open source environment which would perfectly meet your needs. We need better open source applications for designers. And we need to work together to produce them and then use them. Just think for a second: how many young designers can afford Adobe anyway? Do we not need a platform that supports us while we support it? Doesn’t open source represent the true spirit of design?

Nick Pretorius,
[Source]

General Intranet Posts, Visual Interface Adobe, Design, Microsoft, open source

Everyday, we visit tens of websites everyday and every website has its own interface and logo design. But how many of these logos we remember actually?

Web Logos

There are 2 different versions in guess the logo website which aims to test your memory skills. You might think that you will always remember the logo of Google, but are you sure?

Visit the website and get ready to be surprised.

General Intranet Posts Design, Logo