What is Groupware?
In the modern era, where enterprises are expanding beyond both local and national level, collaboration between employees from such disseminate groups can be a problem, but in order to be competitive, such diversity is required in the big companies. So, a proper collaboration is required among the employees is required and this is where Groupware becomes a prerequisite.
So, what exactly Groupware is? In simple words, Groupware, or as many say Collaborative software is a technology that allows a group of people to work on the same application or system, no matter where they belong. With the development of the Internet, video conferencing, and other communication technologies, the development in Collaborative software has spiraled and thus allow sharing of knowledge and information among the people of different geographical groups and thus allowing them to work for attaining one single goal.
Most of the experts are categorized in the following ways -
- Related to time - When employees use the same application at different time then it is called asynchronous groupware and when used at the same time, it is called synchronous groupware.
- Related to Place - When groupware is used by the employees at the same place, it is called Collocated and if used at different places then it is called Distance.
But, some experts divide Collaborative software into three categories -
- Conferencing tools - These basically include chat rooms, message boards, data, voice, and video conferencing.
- Communication tools - These include basic e-mail, voice mail and FAX.
- Collaborative management tools - These include project management systems, electronic calendars, and workflow systems.
Groupware has a lot of advantages over single user system which we'll discuss later in the features of Groupware. But the first question is why people want to use it? Here are some points that provide the answer.
- It is used to enable new methods of communication and thus allowing group problem solving.
- Groupware helps in providing faster and clearer communication and also enable communication in remote areas where, otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible.
- It helps in creating groups of common interests which can't be possible in real life situation as it is difficult to gather sufficient number of people.
- Collaborative software also helps in enabling telecommunication and cutting down travel costs.
Now, let's discuss the key features of Collaborative software and find out why it is so special.
- Augmentation in group problems solving competence - The main advantage of Groupware is that it allows all the users to access identical data and thus spiral the problem solving capabilities. With quick access to accurate information and quick communication with other users, the decision making process becomes easy and consequently, increase the efficiency of the decision making process.
- Centralized location for data storage - As many people have the access to the data at the same time, so Groupware is designed to store and manage all the data which is relevant to the project and thus, provides easy access to everyone. Moreover, Groupware also records the modifications done by the users and the person who is responsible for the modification.
- Communication enablement - Groupware improves the communication between the users by providing different methods of communication such as Instant messaging, web conferencing, database access, and document versioning. As a repercussion of this, communication intensifies and becomes clearer, faster and more efficient.
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