Claromentis Intranet & Extranet manager provides several ways to collaborate and share information within an organisation. We have application called ‘Documents’ (Document Management System), ‘Publish’ (Content Management System) ‘Wiki’, and our new member of the family ‘Bookshelf’ (online policies & procedures).

In early phase of intranet deployment we frequently being asked by our clients, “Which tool is the best to share and collaborate a piece of information or should we  just stick with an existing company shared drive?”.

There isn’t one solution to all problems

The good starting point is to be aware of the pros, cons and applicability of individual tool available.  Unfortunately as an Information Architect we always says “There isn’t one solution to all problems”. The idea is by having the right solution (with right technology) to a specific problem, we can make everyone’s lives easier.
Let’s start with…

Shared Drive

Typically before an organisation deploys an intranet they have existing growing unmanageable shared drive(s). Shared drive is relatively easy to setup but it suffers from these issues:

• No version control – You ended up having similar files with version number scripted at the back of the file name for example:  “MyPresentation_ver2.doc” not to mention the frustration of someone overwriting the file you’re currently working on.
• Searching – Does everyone feel that it is easier to search information on the internet than on the share drive?
• Limited Access – When you’re not in the office, say on the road or working from home,  you either have to use slow & complicated VPN software or not having access to the company files at all.
• Security – There is no easy way to setup permission on a shared drive, typically it opens to everyone or if you have permission it’s so complicated to set up and configure.
• Audit - You can’t easily check who did what, when and where.
• Duplication – since a single physical file cannot exist in two places at once, you ended up with duplication everywhere.

Documents – Document Management System

Claromentis document management system is designed to address all of the common issues with company Share Drive. The heart of it is the application called ‘Documetns’ It provides built-in version control, searching & indexing, permission layer, easy access, and many enterprise features.

What are the Cons?

• It is not suitable for managing extremely large files. (Larger than 30Mb)
• Files are kept in native format, which means users need to have the application to open / view and edit the file.  For instance not all users within organisation have AutoCAD software needed to open a *.DWG file.
• Speed to upload and download the file stored in Documents are limited to the speed of your network / internet connection
• Extra steps may be required to edit a file. Typically you have to download it (temporary), make changes and upload them back in, although we have several solutions to make this relatively painless such as webdav.

Publish – Content Management System

Using publish, users with no web publishing skills can collaborate & create web pages easily.

• Better access – Information displayed as web pages are widely accessible. Users don’t have to download the file or installing software to view. They can simply read them online.
• Information Hub – everything can be connected in publish page, link to documents, link to other pages, or links to external website. For example you can create a health & safety page which may have link to ‘health & safety assessment guide.PDF’ which is store in Documents as well as link to HSE websites.
• Mash-ups – Publish allows you can embed rich media such as online videos, podcast, web widgets and much more.
• Enterprise features– Publish has everything you need to manage online content, from built-in version control, security & permission, reminder, audit trails, multi lingual and much more.

It may sound like a good idea to convert all documents into publish pages, but there are several points to consider:

• There is not much point converting complicated document such as spreadsheet into a publish page, you probably better of store them in Documents and just link it from a publish page.
• Content for publish page should be relatively short, concise and to the point. Remember the information is designed to be read on the screen just like web pages.

Wiki

A wiki is designed to enable everyone with fast and volatile collaboration. Claromentis integrates with Media WIKI, one of the most popular open-source wiki software. Wiki focuses on fast and real-time collaboration by minimising complexity in content creation. There are several issues to remember here:

• Wiki tend to have open access for everyone – You have to keep sensitive and proprietary data off the wiki.  Avoid posting sensitive data such as financials.
• Wiki syntax to learn, Wiki may focuses on simplicity but there is whole new syntax to learn. Wiki is typically very popular within IT department but what’s popular in one department may not be suitable others.

Bookshelf

Bookshelf is the application behind Claromentis Quality Manager; it is the latest addition to the information layer suite. Bookshelf is designed specifically for managing Company Policies & Procedures. It allows online procedures creation making sure that there is one version of the truth across entire organisation.

• Bookshelf allows company procedures and policies to be maintained online allowing true collaboration of subject matter expert.
• Once the policies or procedures are created online, it can then be read online or exported in various format such as MS Word and PDF.

Summary

These are just a few of the tools available in Claromentis Framework. There isn’t one perfect solution to all problems but at least you can choose ‘the best kit for the job’.

Any comments and feeback welcomed.

Solutions collaboration, document management, intranet consultancy, intranet software, online collaboration, Prod-Intranet, quality management software

Built-in content management module (codename: Publish) in Claromentis is used in several products such as Intranet & Extranet Manager, Document Manager and Enterprise Content Manager.  In version 5.6 we are going to introduce brand new multilingual content management capabilities.

Old days:  Folder solution

Until now web-page contents on the Intranet are limited to one language, although our interface supports complete localization, which means you can have Claromentis interface in Japanese but the content you’re looking at are in English.

We have managed to get around this situation by setting up different folder in Publish, one for each language, for instance we can have folder named “English” for English content and “Japanese” for Japanese content. It make sense right? not quite…

Complexity and Problems

Wait until you have to combine with Departments for example you may have set your folder structure by Departments for example “Marketing”, you may have a page called “Branding” under Marketing.

Imagine the complexity that you may forced to have 2 marketing folder one for each language. It’s hard enough to look after one folder now you have 2 in separate location, not to mention about a company with offices worldwide deploying more than 5 languages.

Multilingual content in 5.6

In Claromentis 5.6 we are going to introduce built-in multilingual support in Publish. It is so simple to setup, in fact you don’t need to setup anything,

Language Bar

You’ll see language bar displayed when you editing a page to add new content in new language just click “add language” and existing content will be automatically copied ready to be translated.

Know your language

Content based on your preferred language set in “my settings” will be automatically displayed.  For example you may have set your language to “Spanish”, if there is no “Spanish” content of the page you want to see you will be automatically presented with “default language” which in most cases will be “English”.

Unified URL

Say you speak English; you can send a URL of a content page in English to your employees in Japan, when they open it, they will relevant page in Japanese.
Example screenshot below and feel free to give us feedback

Prod-Content 5.6, Claromentis, collaboration, internal customer communications, technology

As collaboration environments for employees intranets have moved forwards incredibly rapidly – from clunky attempts to put information on a web based platform to beautiful permission based systems with complete customisation and version control.

Recently the trend has noticeably moved from the information layer to execution. More clients are interested in Process and Project Manager – they assume the information layer can be effectively implemented and are looking for ways to leverage that up to date information in the execution plans of the business.

This is a trend that we are excited to play our own part in leading. Intranets should not just be about accurate information – they should be about an integrated platform where accurate and appropriate information is available to ensure that the business can move forwards with confidence.

Prod-Intranet collaboration, intranet software

The vast majority of our clients are using Claromentis primarily as an Intranet, not as an Extranet. Why?

Lets take it as a temporary assumption that our clients are indeed moving forwards from the old fashioned and well established agenda of “accurate content and an appropriate information layer for every user”, towards looking for additional value creation through increased innovation.

I still have my concerns that fundamentally our clients are missing the innovation agenda. If they are embracing it – as I have commented before for example “Extranet Based Supply Chain Innovation” – they are really only going to find it by collaborating across business silos – an intranet is of course ideal for this – or by reaching out to partners with expertise that can help to create improved products or service and delivery.

Using information frameworks like ours you would to use our extranet areas if collaborating with partners is of interest to you.

The fact that so few currently do enable extranet access would seem to me to tell us that many UK SME companies are not actually focussed on innovation – or if they are – they are not using collaboration software to achieve it.

My worry is that our assumption is wrong – most clients are actually still looking for an accurate, permissioned information layer, accessible anywhere, and not yet trying to use our software to encourage supply or customer side joint ventures to truly innovate.

My hope is that with the upcoming web 2.0 intranet that is Claromentis 6.0, and the ongoing developments of our Project Manager product to help project execution – we can finally help to change this. Collaborative ventures with partners must surely hold at least as much value creation potential through innovation as sharing best practices and talent between internal departments.

Prod-Intranet collaboration, extranet, ROI, value

I am still far from convinced that many companies in the SME sector really have a prioritized and executive level sponsored agenda to go after collaboration and the business benefits it can bring – but I am completely convinced that very few assess the costs of collaborative projects.

I am becoming a great fan of the Harvard Business Review – and an article this month reviewed the case for walking away from collaborative projects – or rather establishing a framework for assessing their ROI against non-collaborative alternatives.

The essential idea is that companies need to think about the alignment of business value and collaborative projects – many areas of collaboration turn out to be expensive, have political agendas and simply do not deliver an adequate ROI in line with the business needs – compared with the lost opportunity of a simpler project requiring no sophisticated collaboration.

What I found striking about this is :

• In all the meetings I have had with clients and potential clients deciding whether to invest in Claromentis collaboration platforms over the last five years this has never, as far as I can recall – been directly raised. If it has been a topic it is us that have started the debate, not the customer.

• I still do not find that companies here in the UK are looking for intranet and extranet collaboration solutions founded on what I would view as the correct agendas. They are looking at information management challenges – which should really be the foundation and not the ultimate goal.

After so many years of being involved in this space there just seems to be a huge disconnect between what the real world at the SME level is doing – and what the IT and business press is talking about.

I do feel that the nature of Claromentis 6.0 will provide a massive opportunity for this to change for the better – a framework that is accessible to SME companies and that absolutely facilitates the transformation from ideas to collaboration to execution is long overdue.

Solutions collaboration

Recently a lot has been written about project based collaboration, ranging from thought provoking articles about their position in open/closed vs. flat/hierarchical analysis to simply promoting one tool over another. Vendors have really struggled to meet the varied requirements of different projects, while preserving all the advantages of a single information layer and a truly integrated application stack.

With Claromentis Project Manager the company has leveraged everything in the framework to really bring a user selectable range of deeply functional applications to bear on any project, all through the flexible and powerful permission system.

It will be fascinating to watch developments here – as the company now has two flagship products that have extraordinary potential – InfoCapture and Project Manager. Both are related – indeed InfoCapture projects can be integrated in any Project within Project Manager, to report anything within a project and control resolution through any workflow.

With plans to make InfoCapture an integrated complex workflow engine for any Claromentis objects, and Project Manager providing such a deep range of project based functionality, it is a tough call as to which will become the flagship product for 2009.

Maybe they both will.

Prod-Project collaboration, e-forms, Prod-Project