GB2319863A - Groupware adapted for inter/intranet - Google Patents

Abstract

A groupware system which facilitates Internet/Intranet use comprises a plurality of client applications providing respective views of information, stored as objects in a uniform object store (database) together with objects concerning processes to be performed on the information objects, and a plurality of engines providing mechanisms for storing and manipulating the objects contained in the database. It is particularly useful for Network Computer applications where programs are downloadable from the network and interpreted thereat, such as Java programs.

Description

GROUPWARE This invention relates to groupware, that is to say software that helps people work together.

An example of groupware is the TeamWARE (Registered Trade Mark) product. This product comprises groupware applications, personal desktop tools, messaging and connectivity products which allow people to work together no matter where they are or where the information is located.

It lets people organise, find and share information within teams, between groups and across organisations, and is based on client-server principles.

The Internet has created an expectation of low-cost access to information services from a growing variety of access devices, and an explosion of providers of such information.

In the business context, this can substantially reduce the cost of providing IT support for business functions and make that support available in flexible ways with greatly reduced dependence on geographical location. However, the information which the business professional has to use is still typically provided by compartmentalised systems with inconsistent access methods. An Intranet can make it easier to get at the same fragmented information, but in addition delivers a huge amount of unstructured information (e-mail overload) and can make it difficult to find what one is looking for (Web search problems).

This invention is aimed at providing groupware which is Intranet/Internet applicable, whereby to obtain the benefits of the latter.

According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a groupware system comprising a plurality of client applications providing respective views of information available thereto; a memory including a database comprising a uniform object store in which said information is stored as objects together with objects concerning processes to be performed on the information objects; and a plurality of engines providing mechanisms for storing and manipulating the objects contained in the database.

According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer system comprising a server and a plurality of network machines connectable to the server and one another via a network, wherein the network machines are operable in accordance with a groupware system, wherein the groupware system comprises a plurality of client applications providing respective views of information available thereto, wherein the server includes a memory including a database comprising a uniform object store in which said information is stored as objects together with objects concerning processes to be performed on the information objects, wherein the groupware system includes a plurality of engines providing mechanisms for storing and manipulating the objects contained in the database, and wherein the network machines run on programs downloaded from the server and interpreted at the network machines, and/or applications derived from the said downloaded programs.

According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of achieving groupware operation of a plurality of network machines including the steps of: connecting the network machines to one another and to a server via a network; the server including a memory including a database comprising a uniform object store; storing information available to the network machines as objects in the database; storing, in the database, objects concerning processes to be performed on the information stored as objects; for operation of each network machine, downloading interpretable programs, for running the network machines, from the server, and interpreting said downloaded programs; and forming at least one predetermined view of the information stored as objects at each network machine being run, and manipulating the objects stored in the database in order to perform predetermined processes.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 illustrates, schematically, a conventional groupware structure, and Figure 2 illustrates a groupware structure according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the conventional TeamWARE groupware product there are a number of applications such as Mail, Calendar, Library and Forum.

Mail is for electronic mail; Calendar, for example, enables the scheduling of meetings; Library is for long-term storage of documents, and Forum, for example, enables group discussions.

Another product is Flow, a workflow tool for automation of business processes, which allows people continuously to improve, and collaboratively to plan, business processes. It links the people, the plan and the work so that teams can adapt to changes by managing their activities and continuously improve the process along the way. Neither Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) activities nor extensive application development are needed to start the system.

As illustrated in Figure 1, in this conventional product there is a client-server structure and the information is stored in an object database. There are client and corresponding server applications 1-5, 1A-5A for Mail, Calendar, Forum, Library and Flow, an Information object Space 6 for Document, Calendar, Folder, Person and Access Rights, whilst Flow entries are in a separate space 7. In space 6 mail items are stored as mail objects, Calendar entries are stored as Calendar objects, Library documents are stored as Library objects, etc.

When sending a mail item, for example, a person may be saying "here is a document", "did you know", "can we meet?". All of the clients involved (Mail, Forum, Calendar) are, in effect, different perspectives on the same set of information, but that is not how the current system is constructed. Rather there are separate Mail objects, Calendar objects etc. The Flow entry, which is disposed separately, tries to automate the process.

In more general terms, business professionals need access to the normal set of business support items (documents, appointments, messages, tasks, etc) and from a number of views. This may be from an individual perspective, from a team perspective, or from the perspective of a customer of the business (case views). These views may be different at different times, depending on what is required by or demanded of the individual, team or customer. The views also need to be active, ie they do not simply present information, they may prompt for action or require response. In addition, almost all of the typical groupware functions can be seen as special examples of more general workflow tasks and processes. For example, a Mail in-tray can be thought of as a "to do" list of tasks; planning can be considered as a combination of Calendar and Workflow; Library, Forum and Mail are related models of information flow. If all interactions were "workflow enabled", people could add workflow/process definition/constraints to any set of objects/tasks. Flexible process support could thus become a standard part of all interactions with business information, rather than a costly extra as at present.

Hence, rather than having the separate information object space 6 and flow entries space 7, it is proposed to have a single information object space 8 (Figure 2), a generic mass of objects, in which instead of associating each object with a "use", ie a mail item, or a calendar item etc, they are just entries that can be "animated" by a flow entry (object) disposed in the same space and which can manipulate the overall dataspace to automate the process.

Quite how this could be achieved for an Internet use will now be disclosed. There is a programming language called Java which has been developed by Sun Microsystems Inc expressly for use on the Internet. It is an interpreted language and Java programs can run on any machine which has a Java interpreter. It is an object-oriented language and has various security aspects built into it. Since Java programs can run on any machine with an interpreter and can thus be downloaded from a respective server connected to the Internet, for example, upon connection thereto by such a machine, in particular the recently proposed low-cost machines known as Network Computers, the use of Java, or any other language with the interpreter/downloading characteristics, can provide groupware functionality to basic and low cost machines which are interconnected by the Internet, or an Intranet. Network Computers run only Java programs, or similar; they do not run UNIX, DOS etc.

The use of Java, or similar, with groupware, such as TeamWARE, enables the groupware functionality to be delivered anywhere at zero incremental cost using a company Intranet or even the Internet, to any devices capable of running Java, or a similar programming language.

As discussed above, the current structure of TeamWARE has a strong client-server architecture with a substantial common object representation of the main items in the system (Figure 1) and this structure is well suited as it stands to evolution using Java, or similar. Indeed client functionality could be migrated piecemeal into Java, or similar, and this client redevelopment could exploit the recently proposed JavaBeans reusable component technology, thereby enabling the creation of software components which can be reconfigured to support the types of multiple views described above, plus integration with other components from other suppliers if required. This approach dramatically extends the functionality available to the customer at a much lower cost than traditionally, and in a platform independent manner. Whilst the server functionality of Figure 1 could be evolved to exploit the generality of Web based information server techniques etc, it is considered that it is preferable to reconstruct the Information Object Space 6 of figure 1, which is already implemented as a set of related objects, as the common object model of Figure 2. The TeamWARE object model is a natural fit with the object-oriented approach of the Java language. Instead of the client applications of Figure 1, there are views 11-14, representing individual views, team views, cases views and any other wanted views.

To achieve the Information Object Space 8 illustrated in Figure 2, it is necessary to converge the object model and APIs supporting Flow (7, Figure 1) with the other products, Mail, Calendar, Library, Forum. Client functionality (corresponding to the views 11-14) is provided by Java applets, which may be flexibly configured from JavaBeans (Beans 9, which may include those provided by other vendors for additional system functionality). A uniform object store (space 8) is thus provided and is supported by "engines" (10) which provide the mechanisms for storing and manipulating the objects, including key indexing and linking functions. This corresponds to the combined functionality of the current discrete server components (1A-5A, Figure 1).

The object space 8, provided by for example an ODB-II database, is an active model of the business processes it supports and can therefore provide active process support and direction, as well as information on demand.

It is considered that the skilled system designer, to whom this specification is addressed, would have no difficulty in deciding how to perform the invention for any particular groupware system, eg to converge the object model and APIs supporting Flow with the other products, and implement the necessary Java applets, hence no further description is considered necessary.

Claims (8)

1. A groupware system comprising a plurality of client applications providing respective views of information available thereto; a memory including a database comprising a uniform object store in which said information is stored as objects together with objects concerning processes to be performed on the information objects; and a plurality of engines providing mechanisms for storing and manipulating the objects contained in the database.

2. A groupware system as claimed in Claim 1 and used by a plurality of network machines, which machines run on programs downloaded from the network and interpreted at the machines, and/or applications derived from said downloaded programs.

3. A groupware system as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the client applications include individual views, team views, and case views; wherein the database includes document objects, calendar objects, folder objects, said process objects, person objects, access rights objects, roles objects, and tasks objects; and wherein the engines provide indexing, scheduling and linking as well as said storing.

4. A computer system comprising a server and a plurality of network machines connectable to the server and one another via a network, wherein the network machines are operable in accordance with a groupware system, wherein the groupware system comprises a plurality of client applications providing respective views of information available thereto, wherein the server includes a memory including a database comprising a uniform object store in which said information is stored as objects together with objects concerning processes to be performed on the information objects, wherein the groupware system includes a plurality of engines providing mechanisms for storing and manipulating the objects contained in the database, and wherein the network machines run on programs downloaded from the server and interpreted at the network machines, and/or applications derived from the said downloaded programs.

5. A computer system as claimed in Claim 4, wherein the client applications include individual views, team views, and case views; wherein the database includes document objects, calendar objects, folder objects, said process objects, person objects, access rights objects, roles objects, and tasks objects; and wherein the engines provide indexing, scheduling and linking as well as said storing.

6. A method of achieving groupware operation of a plurality of network machines including the steps of: connecting the network machines to one another and to a server via a network; the server including a memory including a database comprising a uniform object store; storing information available to the network machines as objects in the database; storing, in the database, objects concerning processes to be performed on the information stored as objects; for operation of each network machine, downloading interpretable programs, for running the network machines, from the server, and interpreting said downloaded programs; and forming at least one predetermined view of the information stored as objects at each network machine being run, and manipulating the objects stored in the database in order to perform predetermined processes.

7. A groupware system substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in Figure 2 of the accompanying drawings.

8. A method of achieving groupware operation of a plurality of networked machines substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in Figure 2 of the accompanying drawings.