1. Collaborative tools in NICE Alex Lossent - CERN IT/IS Hepix Fall 2005

2. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent2 Agenda  Overview of the NICE environment  File sharing  Sharing information in Outlook  Workflow with Office and mail  Instant Messenger  Future: web-based collaboration

3. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent3 The NICE environment  Desktop environment built around Windows  Windows XP + MS Office 2003  Single Distributed File System (DFS)  Home directories + shared workspaces  Outlook/Exchange “collaboration platform”  http://www.cern.ch/winservices self-service site  Manage user accounts, computers, security groups  Instant messenger on internal SIP server.

4. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent4 NICE Environment (2)  All features are available on-site or from outside CERN:  Web-based or WebDAV remote access to DFS  Collaboration platform: Outlook Web Access, Outlook 2003 in mode “RPC over HTTP”  Windows Terminal Services  Available on other platforms.

5. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent5 File sharing  DFS: single unified repository for home directories & shared workspaces  Shared Workspaces available on-demand for projects, groups, etc…  Self-service management from WinServices web site:  Creation of Workspace  Security group and permissions management  Quota management, shadow copies  Accessible from outside CERN  Offline folders, Web/WebDAV access

6. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent6 Collaborative work with Outlook 2003  Motivation, typical situation:  Administrative assistants organizing the Supervisor’s mailbox and sorting mails  Reading the Supervisor’s calendar  know where he/she is or his/her availability  manage his time  take appointments and avoid conflicts  People sharing common contacts stored in a single location

7. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent7 Collaborative work with Outlook 2003 (2)  Mailbox sharing and Send on behalf  Share all mailbox or specific folders  Allow selected users to send mail on your behalf  Scheduling of meetings  Check colleagues’ availability  Automated invitations and processing of replies  Task assignment  Create tasks for oneself or others  Due dates, progress reporting, reassignment with automatic follow-up, reminders

8. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent8 Collaborative work with Outlook 2003 (3)  All features are available on-site or from outside CERN:  Outlook 2003 in mode “RPC over HTTP”  Outlook Web Access  Windows Terminal Services  Mac OS X: Entourage (Office SP2)  Available on other platforms  Outlook Web Access  Windows Terminal Services

9. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent9 Workflow with Office and mail  Problem  Documents need to be reviewed by other persons  Documents need to be edited by several persons  Basic document workflow built in Office applications  “send for review” feature  Recipients receive the document by mail and can modify & annotate it  Owner receives updated document by mail and can review & merge changes  Keeps track of changes

10. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent10 Instant Messenger  Problem  Quickly exchange messages with colleagues  Exchange files in a click  Front-end to NetMeeting  Internal “Live Communication Server”  Windows Messenger client  Solves dependency on external services (ICQ, MSN…) and associated security threats  Inside or outside CERN

11. 10 October 2005Alex Lossent11 Future: web-based collaboration  “E-groups”  Web-hosted collaboration space for a “community”  Merge forums, mailing lists, news  File exchange, calendar/events  Support for “external users”  Looking at open-source, customizable tools  More advanced workflow management  Versioning, concurrent authoring  Multiple documents within a workspace