Enterprise collaboration news: January 2014 round-up

The first month of 2014 has seen enterprise collaboration news full of suggestions for how organisations can work to improve their operations and make the most of their existing resources.

Leveraging organisations’ networks

Knowledge sharing and talent management have been big news this month, as enterprises look to make improvements and investments in the year ahead. In his article for Forbes, What should HR leaders focus on in 2014?, Edward Lawler explains that the main focus for most organisations this year should be on talent management and talent development, which Edward says is “becoming more critical as many organisations are doing much more complex, knowledge-based work and operating globally”. It’s essential that enterprises have the tools to do this, and knowledge management systems such as HighQ Collaborate will prove increasingly helpful.
As well as managing and leveraging the human network of organisations, it is also vital that employees are connected to one another and the organisation read more at http://highq.com/enterprise-collaboration-news-january-2014-round/

Still using eRoom? Here’s why you need an alternative.

Many organisations still use eRoom. These companies may well have been early adopters of document management and file sharing platforms who have failed to update their systems over the years. Or perhaps they don’t realise there are better options out there. Perhaps they’re afraid of disrupting the way the organisation runs by implementing a new system now after all this time.
However, there are many reasons why companies really ought to seek out a alternative to eRoom.

What’s the problem with eRoom?

One problem with eRoom is that it wasn’t built for complex user set-ups and only offers basic user groups with simple permission sets. Additionally, eRooms deployed on enterprise servers suffer from problems with syncing, caused by flaws in the fundamental architecture of the software.
Aside from the problems with the way the system runs, eRoom also requires hefty initial investment on hardware, software and antivirus as well as eRoom licenses. Ongoing costs include server maintenance and regular software upgrades.
While these may be problems specific to eRoom, there are numerous business problems that eRoom doesn’t begin to solve that its alternatives do.

What should you look for in an alternative to eRoom?

1. A cloud-based platform.

The nature of work is changing. Increasing numbers of companies are opening global offices or working with partners or clients in different offices or cities. Cloud-based systems enable individuals to share files and collaborate from anywhere in the world. Information and files are not stored on shared drives, laptops or inboxes, siloed and difficult to access. Instead, files can be securely accessed from any device anywhere in the world by any user with the correct permissions.

2. A web-based application.

Rather than having to install software on individual machines which requires regular manual updates to keep things running smoothly, web-based platforms require no installation or set-up read more.

Building ROI From Your Investment in HighQ Collaborate

During our forum in 2013 we established that many of our clients buy HighQ Collaborate to address just one single issue of challenge, despite the flexibility of the platform. Our clients said that for them the top five use cases for Collaborate were the following:

75% use HighQ Collaborate for secure file sharing
64% use it for team collaboration
64% use it for secure client extranets
57% use it for virtual data rooms
50% use Collaborate for client knowledge sharing
It’s now the end of January 2014 and all but the last few clients have upgraded to Collaborate 3 and importantly all those clients quickly realised that HighQ Collaborate wasn’t a one trick pony and could add tremendous value to their orgnaisation. Whether our clients purchased HighQ Collaborate for secure file transfer, a white label dataroom, or to provide the latest generation of extranets to their clients, all have realised the untapped potential of their investment.

Since upgrading to Collaborate 3 our clients are slowly coming to understand is that we’ve been working very hard behind the scenes bringing together a blend of those consumer grade solutions to the enterprise, a mobile optimised platform, an awesome user experience and that we’ve had you, the clients, in our thoughts along the way. The majority of us at HighQ have worked in or for law firms before. We know the challenges you face and importantly we are building solutions to help you address them. Read More

Tuesday Tip: Private Messages

Our Tuesday Tip blog posts give you some quick tips and tricks that help you make the most of HighQ Collaborate. Get more tips in our Tuesday Tip archive.

Private messages

You can send and receive private messages in HighQ Collaborate.

Create and access your private messages using the Private Message button on the right of the Top Navigation Bar.

Click on the icon and a drop down menu showing your recent messages will appear (unread messages are shown in blue).

Compose a message from here by clicking the New Message button, or click on the See all… link to access the full Private Message module. You can choose to receive online and email notifications when you are sent a private message.

Do you use private messages? Share your tips in the comments!

Source : http://highq.com/tuesday-tip-private-messages/

Seven Ways Group Tasks Help You Keep Track of Projects

You might be working on multiple projects at once, working on one with multiple components, or maybe just working on a small project – either way, having a place to keep your thoughts organised, keep your team up to date, and to use as a reference point for information is invaluable. The Tasks module in HighQ Collaborate is a useful tool for organising your project and keeping your group tasks on track.

No matter what you’re working on or how many people you’re working with, here are seven ways group tasks will help with your projects:

1. Tasks help you keep track of what you and your team members are doing

All tasks stay visible within your team’s collaboration site, which means that you can always keep an eye on the status of your own tasks and those of colleagues and team members. As the task list is collaborative, everyone can see and add to task lists, and it is easy to quickly see overdue tasks, and filter tasks by assignee or due date. When tasks have been completed, they appear on the task list marked as complete, so it is easy to see what has been done and what is outstanding.

2. Tasks keep all relevant information in one place

What is so great about using group tasks to organise projects is the ability to keep everything associated with the project in one place. You can attach files to tasks and link to wiki pages and blog posts which makes it even easier to carry out the task once you start. If you assign a task to someone else, you can attach all the relevant information that they will need to complete it. Read More

How could your law firm use Collaborate?

Collaboration platforms are designed to help law firms perform better, forge relationships with clients, and share information between colleagues. Here’s how a few of our law firm clients use HighQ Collaborate to solve their business problems and help them achieve more.
Ian Rodwell, Linklaters
“We use HighQ Collaborate to share content with a number of external parties, primarily our clients and also our alliance firms as well, so we see it as a secure way of sharing quite confidential materials with a number of third parties that we deal with. Having the product range from HighQ has really helped establish ourselves in that market, and I think it’s also demonstrated to people internally the art of the possible, and seeing how their content can be delivered to clients - it’s encouraged them to produce more that we can share.”
Esther Albers, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek
“We use Collaborate as a document exchange platform for our clients. It enables us to deepen our client relationships, and to deliver added value to our projects that we run with our clients. What we really like is that it enables us to build real sites, both for ourselves for projects, and also with our clients to exchange know-how, legal alerts and events information.”
Mark Gould, Addleshaw Goddard
“We’re using Collaborate primarily for real estate clients where they serve institutional investors with panels relationships. It replaces a lot of the social tools we were thinking about implementing otherwise, so it saves us a lot of money. Our clients find it particularly useful to have one site to go to, so you might have a surveyor with several different firms he’s working with, but to be able to go to just one site, to be able to deal with documents on a whole range of different sites is great, it’s useful.” read more.

A step-by-step guide to getting your business working social

“Social” in the enterprise context means connecting people. It means associating work, content, knowledge or data with the person who created it. It means being able to see something that someone has done within a collaboration platform and viewing their profile where you can see what else they’ve done and get an idea of their field of expertise. Getting to know the people that you work with helps you to find right person with the right knowledge for the right job. Working social means that knowledge sharing can become a side-effect of working. Everything created within a social collaboration platform is visible to colleagues who have access, so knowledge is instantly shared and information is immediately communicated.

Social business, on the other hand, refers to the concept of optimising the way an organisation runs in order to benefit its entire ecosystem, from owners to employees to clients. This is done by instilling a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing and open communication throughout the business. The goal of this is to become more effective as an organisation, help people get their work done, and leverage human capital in order to ultimately become a more successful company read more.