Founders Words

Features

Community Wisdom

Collaboration Tools

Latest Enhancements

There's a variety of collaboration tools on the market. Group Commons offers here a list of tools it considers best of breed. All tools below are used daily by Group Commons members. They are tried and battle tested. We welcome suggestions to improve this section.

Internet Browsers
Mozilla Firefox
   Firefox is proving to be a superb replacement for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Not only does it run faster and require fewer resources on your computer, it is less subject to viruses and other maladies while browsing the net. In addition, you will find that Firefox is better able to render some features on the Group Commons site. If you find some menus "bleeding through" from underneath, we encourage you to visit http://www.getfirefox.com/

Voice Conferencing
Skype
   Skype has proven to be an extremely versatile tool for one-on-one voice communication, as well as up to 10 person conference calls, using computers. It stands out above the alternatives in the quality of its conference calls and its simultaneous instant messaging to support workgroups in note taking, sharing text, and documenting work performed. Group Commons recommends Skype to all its members and provides training in the most effective uses of the tool.

Desktop Sharing
WebDialogs unyte
   Superbly integrated with Skype, WebDialogs unyte uses Skype dialogue boxes to invite Skype users who are online to desktop sharing sessions--specific applications or the entire desktop. Documents, presentations, applications, slide shows--anything that facilitates the work of the workgroup--everybody views together, works together, and documents its progress in Skype's online chats.

Open Source Collaboration Packages
tikiwiki
  If you want a wiki environment, tikiwiki is a great choice. Wikis enable participation by large groups, with minimal familiarity with traditional application development. Group Commons endorses the wiki as a collaboration tool and is prepared to supplement existing wikis with additional functionality for communities that require more traditional programming and database technology.

Source Code Repositories
cvs
   CVS is the original version control system. Its been the mainstay of thousands of developers for many years.

svn
   SVN is beginning to make inroads. Its ability to handle directories and its integration with the web makes it a more promising system to bet on for the future.

Some of the key functionality in source code repositories include:

• Hooks to allow email notifications on check-in to appropriate people
• Hooks to force the user to add a comment
• Depending on your organization, hooks to tie your code changes directly to tickets or issues