What is Groupware? Why?

What is Groupware?

It is a software tool to support group of people on a network to working together in a same project but in different locations.

It is also called Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

Collaboration:-

Where two or more people can work together for a common goal.

Communication:-

It is a process to exchange information in several ways.

Coordination:-

Making different people work together for a goal.

Why Groupware?

Application for allowing a workgroup to share information like

• Sharing of Calendars.
• Collective Writing.
• E-Mail handling.
• Shared Database Access.
• Electronic Meetings.

With any updates that made by each user is available to others.

There are some of the most common reasons people want to use groupware

• Better cost control
• Increased productivity
• Better customer service
• Fewer meetings
• Automating routine processes
• Maintain bulletin boards
• Have several people work on one document
• Hold real-time network meetings
• Share files
• Share spreadsheets
• Share information
• Have cooperative project management
• Extending the organization to include both the customer and the supplier
• Keep common schedules
• Make easy to group solve the problem.

The main goal of the groupware is to improve cooperation and productivity of those workgroups.

Groupware benefits:-

Groupware is used for a variety of reasons,

The main reason is collaboration within the team.

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ It allows companies and work groups to the share information better.

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ It helps the group to solve the problems collectively.

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ It enables the staff to understand the targets of company business in the Market.

Some groupware applications are used to solve the problem of having employees in different places. Employees do not need to be in the office in order to access groupware by logging in to a network or intranet server.

Groupware is divided into two categories:-

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ Synchronous (or Realtime) groupware allows working simultaneously.

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ Asynchronous groupware allows working at different times.

These categories are divided into two groups:-

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ Colocated (Face-to-face) groupware allows working together in the same place.

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ

￯﾿ﾂ￯ﾾﾷ Non-colocated (Distance) groupware allows working in different places.

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