OWx2 Online Workspace Whizzes Share, Collaborate, Communicate A look inside team portals and web office environments Maria Morales, Betsy Dugas, Kathrine Meus, Brendan O’Connor, Josh Westerlund Project site:

Team portals and Web Office Environments defined A team portal is the web solution for managing : projects team work products team members schedules resources attributed within the team

Outline General Affordences Product Overview –Zoho Business –Central Desktop –Sosius  Hyper Office Interactive Demo  Huddle Insights from the Project

General Affordances All products reviewed met these general affordances: Calendar Documents with versions Group Discussion Tools Task Management Groups or Projects For more details see

Brief Overview of Products Zoho Business Central Desktop Sosius Huddle Hyper Office List of all products evaluated: –

Zoho Business Zoho Business is aimed at small and medium sized organizations with limited IT support and staff. Find a full write-up on Zoho Business at the OWx2 Wiki (

Zoho Business Pros –Very nice web office environment with collaborative editing. –Ability to create different groups with their own “home”. –Each group home has their own task list, calendar, and link list features. –Relatively easy to use and manage. Low learning curve.

Zoho Business Collaborative Editing Shows changes in real time

Zoho Business Cons: –The group spaces do not provide a group discussion tool via wikis or blogs. –It is still in beta and has a number of bugs. –Document sharing needs to be improved upon. Cannot share documents with groups you have setup in Zoho Business.

Central Desktop Provides collaboration tools for small to medium sized companies Wide range of tools to support teams Flexible plans that include pay as you go Small company with great upside

Project reporting tool Calendaring options Central Desktop

Small company means limited resources Security-The issue that software cannot be installed on company servers may present issues with larger corporations Full evaluation can be found here:

Monday, May 5, 2008 – ended Beta “Widgets” used in OO interface Found 2 bugs they fixed right away Cool Dashboard of Portlets Poised for 3 rd party Extensibility Every Widget is “tagable” Almost Every widget is “RSS”able

Main Dashboard Main Calendar summarizes events of all my calendars Groups take me to Dashboards Workspaces take me to folder view of stuff and shared items

Workspace View

Sosius in Summary Basic package with lots of potential. Great for technically savy groups Full evaluation can be found here: –

HyperOffice Tailor-made intranets, extranets and customer portals, complete with dynamic collaboration tools Fast access to one another's calendars, inboxes, document storage, contact lists, discussion groups, projects and tasks Examples: customer portals, partner portals, management portals, employee portals...etc.

HyperOffice Target Company: –Small to Medium Sized Company: Internal and External Clients Full write-up can be found at the OWx2 Wiki (

HyperOffice Pros –Easy, clear navigation separates personal from group items/tasks –Rich Calendar with ability to overlay all calendars into one –Offers security, integrity and data back up Cons –Storage Space is limited. Large businesses would have to purchase extra –It is not totally free ($5/month/user) –May require special user training

Hyper Office Calendar Demo

Huddle Huddle caters to all types of organizations, including government, but particularly to those with limited or no resources to IT support Full write-up can be found at the OWx2 Wiki (

Huddle Pros –Wiki-style collaboration via Whiteboards –Commenting capabilities on all types of content: whiteboards, files, tasks, etc. –Social networking via integration with Facebook –Full onsite setup, training and extended support for enterprise packages –Open API allows integration with existing applications or additional development on top of Huddle

Huddle Cons –Calendaring functionality is weak: no support for recurring meetings or tasks –Profile information is not searchable, detracts from knowledge discovery capabilities

Huddle Take me to the demo!

Team Portal Trivia Zoho Editor is used by: –Sosius –Huddle Products that allow users to see free time on other people's calendar –Central Desktop –Hyper Office