Novell Teaming and Novell Teaming + Conferencing

At Novell’s BrainShare conference in March 2007, Novell announced two new additions to its workgroup product suite: Novell Teaming and Novell Teaming + Conferencing. These products are based on SiteScape’s open-source collaboration product and allow users to employ virtual workspaces to share and access documents, calendars, discussion forums, and to converse in real-time Web conferences. The products are feature rich and integrate into Novell and other environments via open standards, like LDAP and SMTP. It makes teamwork and knowledge sharing a built-in workgroup feature, and through an automated review process, work is more immediately visible for review, feedback, and revision. It is designed for the enterprise, but also fits well in smaller environments, allowing “knowledge workers” to cooperate through the entire life cycle of business information.

Its impressive, out-of-the-box collaboration tools and the maturity of its technology allow it to compete with the likes of Microsoft’s SharePoint/Live Communication Server, Lotus Notes, and other portal solutions.

The Novell Teaming software is a browser based portal and provides users a variety of functionality, including:

• Document management
• Team calendaring
• Task management
• Discussion threads
• Wikis and blogs
• Workflow
• Content and knowledge management
• Full text indexed searching

In addition, users can create online workspaces, allowing them to invite other members of the workgroup, organization, or different organizations to participate.

Novell Teaming software document management system is rather compelling. Other documentation management systems require that documents be imported into their database system. This removes traditional access to the file system and provides exclusive access via the document management interface. Novell Teaming software is different; one of its touted features is a “virtual import” which allows the document management database to access the file system via the WEBDAV standard. The document’s meta-data (author, subject, keywords, etc.) is stored in the document management database, including an HTML rendering and revision history, along with a pointer to the file system location. The legacy file system access is maintained, while affording all the benefits of a full-fledged document management system.

Novell Teaming + Conferencing includes all the capabilities of the Novell Teaming product and enhances them with a real-time collaboration client. Team members can collaborate via live voice, Web conferences, and instant messaging. The client feature includes:

• Web and voice conferencing
• Application sharing
• Instant Messaging
• Integrated presence awareness

All conversations are captured and stored for retrieval and sharing. The security features use role-based management to ensure the right users have access to the right information.

Gartner and other industry analysts agree that: “Enterprise social software will be the biggest new workplace technology success story of this decade." Novell Teaming and Novell Teaming + Conferencing have the potential to improve employee collaboration and productivity, as well as create real synergy by bringing people together to create, share, discuss and manage information. Through document and content management, social networking, web conferencing, and other collaboration tools, individuals are able to form high performance teams and deliver better business results. The product is currently in closed beta, however feel free to contact your C/D/H consultant or visit http://www.novell.com/products/teaming for more information today!