Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Who wants to built .WRK?

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Posted by defunct defunct on
Hi Lars,

Yes, shaping up much as I'd expect. A portal-style view of corporate intranet is pretty much the way to go I think... however...

I think there's a few areas which are critically important to an intranet-in-a-box that are going to have to be included fairly early on, the danger being that if not all we end up with is a giant, super-fly message board.

One of the things complicating an intranet-in-a-box is that any company of any significant size is a collection of distinct, though related, functions. i.e. Marketing, Sales, Deliver, Support HR and so on...

I personally feel that in many respects the non-tech functions are the primary driver, as its often these folks who drive new investment in stechnologies like .WRK. Its also interesting to note thats its also these areas of a business that are not well served by existing proprietary systems. (got a partner in marketing).

I'd like to see things like these given high priority early on.

  • Account Management
  • Contact/Sales databases
  • Campaign Management (bulk mailing, auto responses etc).
  • Good story on how the intranet functions with existing web investment. Maybe this is XML/SOAP interfaces, maybe its a 'move your website to .WRK.. and so on..
  • Integration is key. Someone's already mentione Lotus Notes, and its products like these that dotWRK *must* offer interfaces to. Companies will already have investment in these areas, and products that don't/can't integrate are likely to be un-selected.
  • HR functions... Timesheets, Holiday booking, expense claims....
  • Project SubSites. Easy to create, subsited sections for individual projects/managers/teams...
  • Communication functionality. At it simplest CHAT.... figuring that most companies interested in intranets are probably also geographically separated.

Sounds a lot doesn't it but most of the above already has a basis/start-point in existing ACS functionality. We've already built a really simple contact/sales db app which might make a start for some of the things above.