Collaboration /Business process management
Collaboration
Increasingly an Enterprise Content Management suite will also include a suite of collaboration software
Collaboration suites consist of a number of software programs and functions to facilitate human interaction over electronic networks. Core functions can include:
| Function | Description |
| Calendaring/scheduling | Shared diary services for scheduling events, meetings etc |
| Whiteboarding | Software for freehand drawing and pen-based writing on handheld computers or other mobile devices |
| Instant messaging | Real time, text-based peer to peer communications over the internet |
| Asynchronous text based communication across a LAN or the internet | |
| Presence detection | The ability to see if other users, on a pre selected list are online concurrently |
| IP telephony | Links IP telephony with other collaborative functions so users can phone a colleague's number and set a calendar event |
| Web conferencing | Online shared meeting facilities on the desktop or as part of a group conference |
| ELearning/eTraining | An online education or training program that can be on demand or set to a pre-determined date and time. |
| Document/content management | facilities to create and share content including office suites and applications, shared drives and Windows shared services plus full EDM facilities so staff can manage the content creation collaboration process and control access to content and rights and permissions over editing, annotation etc. |
| Knowledge management | Makes corporate information available to all wherever it is based - includes search tools/portals |
| Digital asset management | supports storage, retrieval and reuse of digital objects such as images, video and audio and provides rights management facilities |
There are two main decisions to make.
The first is - do you need a separate collaboration tool in addition to an EDRM solution with a business process management tool?
If the answer is yes because you need to support the informal communications and document sharing facilities which a collaboration package offers then the second question is do you purchase a collaboration suite as part of your enterprise content management suite from the supplier of that suite or do you already have a collaboration tool in which case you purchase an EDRM system that interfaces with that collaboration environment.
It should also be clear that many of the collaboration functions listed above will result in the creation of new content, a subset of which will need to be caught and declared as records. This reinforces the need for any collaboration suite to be closely integrated with the EDRM solution.
