Groupware allows companies and work groups to share information better. Groupware helps to coordinate user work and solve problems collectively .Groupware enables the staff to understand the targets of company business. Also some groupware programs are used to bypass the traditional problem of having employees in a lot of places. By logging in to a LAN or intranet server, employees don't need to be in the office in order to access certain groupware and benefit from collaboration.
Groupware types.
Groupware is divided into two categories related to time: "Synchronous" (or "Realtime") groupware allows to work simultaneously,"Asynchronous" groupware allows to work at different times. These categories are divided into two groups related to place: "Colocated" ("Face-to-face") groupware allows to work together in the same place and "Non-colocated" ("Distance") groupware allows to work in different places
Groupware supposes highly-structured communication between peoples. Though communication structure may differ from company to company, task management groupware helps to set a common workflow within the company.A task is planned by team leader or department manager and assigned to an employee. Then the employee automatically receives a notification about the assignment and starts working. After the employee finishes work on the task, he or she changes status of the task and team leader automatically receives the informations about it.
When setting up a groupware, it's very important to specify what information is private and what is shared. Simultaneous access by everyone to everything is a key feature of groupware, but sometimes it can be vulnerable and lead to a mess. So groupware administrator should take care that besides common folders with company tasks, peoples have their personal folders that nobody else can see. This is also true for company tasks that should remain secure against attempts of not authorized users to see them.
A Groupware applications is VIP Task Manager. Is synchronous groupware for task management. This client/server software allows planning, scheduling, sharing, tracking and reporting tasks, appointments, projects, and any company traffic. Authorized users can simultaneously access the common database through Local Network (LAN) to see, add, edit and delete their team or personal tasks, if they are grunted appropriate permissions.VIP Team To Do List is asynchronous groupware for task management. It is single-user system that allows team leaders to create, manage and send tasks or individual to-do lists to team members by e-mail or publish to-do lists on company website.