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Communications management services of GroupWise 5 facilitate the movement of information among members of a workgroup without corrupting or compromising the information. Common administration and management of GroupWise 5 reduces the cost of ownership and leverages the existing network services by letting organizations manage their groupware applications and their network from a common point of administration.

Business Solutions

GroupWise 5 reduces the cost of ownership and leverages the existing network services by letting organizations manage their groupware applications and their network from a common point of administration. GroupWise 5 empowers both the individual and the team or workgroup. Specifically, GroupWise 5 enables the following:

  Knowledge workers to accelerate their decision-making processes
  Enterprisewide and departmental workgroups to accelerate the execution of tasks and business processes
  Power users and applications developers to create custom groupware applications tailored to solve unique business or reengineering objectives
  System administrators to easily manage their groupware services, custom applications, and networks at the same time

GroupWise 5 can be used to solve a wide variety of information and communication challenges an organization might face, including the following:

  Leveraging existing information currently tied up in company databases and electronic files anywhere on the network
  Automating business processes (e.g., lead tracking, sales, expense reporting, and purchasing)
  Making individual and group scheduling faster and easier
  Accelerating information access for sales or support personnel
  Replacing less effective meetings with online discussions

The first components of GroupWise 5 were available in the second half of 1996; however, the foundation of GroupWise 5 is available today in the following products that are market-tested: GroupWise, InForms, SoftSolutions, MHS, and Collabra Share for GroupWise. In fact, current customers of these products have driven the requirements for GroupWise 5 described in the following sections.

The GroupWise 5 Desktop

The GroupWise 5 Desktop gives users new tools to help them more efficiently collaborate with others, manage information, and make decisions. These new tools include a Universal In Box, a Universal Out Box, and shared folders. The revolutionary GroupWise 5 Desktop will be available on a variety of client platforms, including MS Windows, Windows 95, Macintosh, Power Macintosh, and UNIX.

At the heart of the GroupWise 5 Desktop is the Universal In Box. This in-box replaces the many competing in-boxes a typical user manages (e.g., voice mailbox, E-mail in-box, fax machine, pager) with a single in-box for all types of information. As a result, users spend less time processing in-box contents and only have to learn one interface to manage all types of incoming information. The GroupWise 5 Desktop provides a framework for how work gets done in an organization.

GroupWise 5 can help users effectively manage day-to-day work, as well as automate multistep business processes. The GroupWise 5 Desktop provides streamlined access to a complete set of groupware features (e.g., messaging, calendaring and scheduling, information storage and retrieval, and custom groupware applications). The GroupWise 5 Universal In Box accepts E-mail messages, schedule requests, delegated tasks, voice mail, faxes, pages, electronic forms, and many other types of data. The GroupWise 5 Desktop is truly unique because of the various forms of information that the Universal In Box can handle. For each of these data types, GroupWise 5 does the following:

  Maintains native attributes. For example, a voice message appears in the Universal In Box as a voice message and maintains its native attributes (e.g., caller identification)
  Profiles and manages information in the same way regardless of data type

Users can apply GroupWise 5’s message-handling functions and server-based rules not only to E-mail but to all data types supported by the Universal In Box (e.g., a voice message can be sorted, delegated, routed, and copied). The GroupWise 5 Universal Out Box provides complete message tracking and user accountability. GroupWise 5 Shared Folders lets members of a team or workgroup easily share information related to a particular topic or project. At any time, users can see if messages have been received, opened, deleted, or delegated. They can even retract messages that have not already been opened. The message tracking offered with GroupWise 5 is especially important as groupware solutions are expanded to transport delegated tasks, appointments, and other workgroup activities.


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