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Through the GroupWise 5 Desktop, users can also access information stored in shared folders. These folders let members of a team or workgroup easily share information related to a particular topic or project. Any type of information supported by the Universal In Box (e.g., messages, voice mail, documents, or faxes) can be stored in shared folders. Through the GroupWise 5 Desktop, users can access all their groupware functions. Messaging, calendaring and scheduling, task management, workflow, electronic forms, document management, online discussions, and even custom groupware applications all are available from one screen, with a consistent interface.

At the heart of the GroupWise 5 work management solution is the Universal In Box. It combines many in-boxes into a single point of entry for all types of information. GroupWise 5 dynamically links together objects of any data type received through the Universal In Box with actions taken on those objects. These links form context trails, a powerful way to preserve the relationship between information and actions. With context trails, users can act on information and relate it to tasks, scheduled items, messages, people, and documents in an intelligent way.

GroupWise 5 provides tools that enable users to streamline, prioritize, manage, and automate responses to incoming information. For example, a product development meeting scheduled in GroupWise 5 might be linked to one of the following:

  The original schedule request to attend the meeting
  An E-mail message from the vice-president citing a specific product problem
  Several complaint forms filled out by technical support
  An online discussion for where solutions for the problem have been discussed
  A voice mail recording from a particularly irate customer

Users rushing into the meeting could quickly navigate through these context trails to construct a full understanding of the situation. The GroupWise 5 Desktop provides a framework for how work gets done in your organization. GroupWise 5 can help users effectively manage day-to-day work, as well as automate multistep business processes, such as expense reporting and customer tracking. In a typical workday, users react to information as it arrives on their desktop, responding to a voice mail message, returning a response to an E-mail, delegating a task, or accepting an invitation to a meeting. The number of these demands is often so overwhelming that a day at work is not a set of planned activities but a series of interruptions. GroupWise 5 provides tools that enable users to streamline, prioritize, manage, and automate responses to incoming information, thereby allowing users to better manage interruptions and execute planned activities.

In addition, GroupWise 5 can automate the repetitive tasks associated with certain business processes (e.g., expense reporting). For example, a common expense report might flow from an employee to a supervisor for review and approval, then route to accounting for reimbursement. In this scenario, GroupWise 5 automates and expedites each individual’s step in the process, as well as the process as a whole. From the GroupWise 5 Desktop, a user would fill out an intelligent expense report form that performs all calculations. The user would then drag the form onto a workflow icon that would launch the approval and reimbursement process.

The power of the GroupWise 5 Desktop applied to a typical new product development team should be considered. From a single window GroupWise 5 can automate a wide variety of business processes (e.g., sales tracking, customer support, and expense reporting) to obtain the following.

  A shared folder containing all of the E-mail and voice-mail messages, faxes, memos, and other inbound information on the current product development cycle
  An online discussion in which the new product’s feature set is discussed with team members in sales, engineering, marketing, and manufacturing from facilities around the world
  Sales history information for previous products in the line

All the information needed to make product development decisions would be readily available without having to switch between programs or dig through a wide variety of sources. The GroupWise 5 Desktop gives individuals and workgroups a powerful work management model designed from the ground up with collaborative computing in mind. It does not dictate how users must go about their work. It is completely customizable and extensible to third-party applications so that users are free to choose the applications they need to shorten decision processes.


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