WebCOM - Web-based Collaboration Manager

Software matures from the start of its utilization. This is why community4you's information system, which is based on open-EIS and has served as working platform for the communication, planning and implementation of customer projects, experiences a permanent re-engineering process.

Challenge
Over the years, customers and project partners who work with our information system gave us a lot of feedback concerning the optimization and special feature requests, especially with regard to the user-friendliness. These modernization factors were realized in the project WebCOM.

Solution
With the project WebCOM an important milestone for the information system – with a special focus on user interface optimization - was set. An updated user interface should permit an intuitive handling of the application. To make a shorter training process possible and guarantee a high user acceptance, the basic building blocks of the user interface were redesigned and aligned to the visual guidelines of standard office applications and established Internet services.

The interface should be usable in a multilingual way, which is an advantage for international teamwork. Project documents should be accessible to all employees centrally and personalized. All necessary applications are to be integrated into a central and consistent user interface. Important project information can be published in the web or as print media directly at any time, communication flows can be bundled and made documentable. By means of a standard web browser all information can be downloaded and distributed any time, any place – as long as the open-EIS security settings and specific permission configurations allow for it. Additionally, an offline system is to be supported, which allows the user to access their data even without an Internet connection. As soon as a network connection is available, the data is synchronized bi-directionally with the open-EIS system. Moreover, integration features such as database, platform and operating system independence as well as service oriented protocols for the realization of interfaces to third-party software applications are supported.

The project runs from February 2009 until January 2011 and is funded with financial resources by INNOVATIVE WACHSTUMSTRÄGER / INNO-WATT (of the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Technology) within the scope of the program "Förderung von Forschung und Entwicklung bei Wachstumsträgern in benachteiligten Regionen."