teamspace The collaboration system for efficient group work
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teamspace helps work groups to collaborate independently of time and place, to bundle their knowledge and to use their abilities efficiently.• Project management • File sharing • E-mail • Chat • Brainstormings • Polls • Discussions • Scheduling
© 2004 A product by 5 POINT AG
Abstract
teamspace is your virtual office on the Internet. With teamspace geographically and organizationally spread teams can cooperate professionally and efficiently. teamspace provides the infrastructure for communication, coordination and co-operation for each team.
You can set up your own virtual team room and equip it with all needed func-tionalities. The created room is available at once to you and your coworkers and is protected by user name, password and SSL-encryption. teamspace supports the coordination and cooperation of virtual groups, it collects and spreads information, reminds of dates and offers a platform for communication among all team members.
teamspace is easy to use and gives you fast and noticeable relief in your group work. The Online Service ensures you access to your team from any Internet port around the world.
Besides the Online Service 5 POINT AG also offers teamspace as an Enterprise Server. This gives you an own portal for virtual cooperation on an own server on the Internet or your Intranet.
You can learn a lot more about teamspace, the Online Service and the Enterprise Server on the following pages.
Let's work together!
5 POINT AG
Benefits
teamspace simplifies coordination of group work processes and thus saves each coworker time. The necessary amount of face-to-face meetings of a group can be reduced, which saves additional time and travel costs.
teamspace is user-friendly, i.e. each coworker can use it instantly and without problems and thus ex-periences fast and noticeable success in his daily work. You are not dependent on getting help from experts, but can integrate teamspace into your daily work at once and on your own. teamspace can be integrated into your EDP without problems, too. It doesn’t need any specific hard- or software re-quirements and doesn’t interfere with other software.
The favorable licence costs enable a quick return on investment for your company and all future costs for teamspace are exactly foreseeable. Plus, the flexible and user-based licence fees enable you to start small and extend the number of users bit by bit later on.
Ways to use teamspace: Online Service or Enterprise Server
You can use teamspace in two ways: You can rent single teams on the Internet at our Online Service at www.teamspace.com or use an Enterprise Server to get your own complete and individual platform on the Internet or Intranet.
An Enterprise Server gives you an own portal for virtual work in your design and with the option to add individual functionalities. The server can be installed in a company’s Intranet and can be connected via interfaces to other applications.
Apart from installations on the Intranet we also offer Web Hosting. We install and run a server on the Internet for you and you rent it on a yearly basis. That way you have the individuality of an Enterprise Server combined with the high accessibility of the Online Service.
References
BMW uses a teamspace Enterprise Server very successfully since 2001. DaimlerChrysler uses an Enterprise Server since 2003 to support their teams worldwide.
The Online Service is used mostly by small and medium-sized companies and organizations, but also global players like Degussa or Philips.
About teamspace
Start a new team
Starting and equipping a new team is easy and fast. All new members get notified automatically by e-mail and get their personal user name and password to log into the team. The virtual team room itself is available at once with all functionalities needed. The team leaders control the overall settings of the team and each team member can adjust some other settings, like language, individually. If a project is finished it can be archived including all data for later analysis.
Communications
Messages
Messages can be sent quickly and easily to all or to individual team members. Telegrams send mes-sages within the team that get displayed on the screen of the recipient. E-mails contact all members outside the team.
Pinboard
The Pinboard works just like a regular pinboard in an office. Notes can be read, attached, changed or deleted by everyone on the team. Pinboard is a platform for informal exchange between all team members.
Fig.: Pinboard
Discussions
In the module Discussions a team can exchange ideas, resolve questions or discuss problems. It is the perfect instrument to collect opinions of the whole team. All members can take part in ongoing discussions, the results can be archived for later use. Different from the Chat (see next paragraph), Discussions is mainly used for timely asynchronous exchanges.
Chat
The Chat is for timely synchronous exchanges within a team. The recording feature can provide auto-matic minutes of each chat session. The Chat module can also be used to keep the minutes at video conferences, because all participants can see what is written down.
Coordination
Addresses
In the module Addresses all team-relevant addresses and web-links are stored. Thus any team member can access all data conveniently at all times.
Address data can be exported automati-cally into common applications such as Microsoft Outlook® or Lotus Notes®.
Figure: Addresses
Figure: Discussions
Calendar
The Calendar in teamspace stores all dates and helps the team to schedule its activities. It has differ-ent views for single days, weeks and months and can also show all dates of a single team member in one view. In addition teamspace can send automatic reminders by e-mail to remind team members of upcoming dates.
Like in Addresses the teamspace Calendar also supports the export of data into applications such as Microsoft Outlook® or Lotus Notes®. teamspace always shows all times adjusted to each member’s local time zone.
Figure: Calendar
Time Sheets
Time Sheets helps you protocol and document your work. You can specify your tasks, insert descrip-tions to each and track the time you worked on it. It gives you the possibility to always be up-to-date on your tasks and to know weather you are within the schedule.
Tasks and projects
Figure: Tasks
In Tasks projects can be coordi-nated and divided into subtasks. You can attach priorities to certain tasks and assign workers. Each task can be labeled with dates for start and end, persons in charge and milestones. The status of each task is visualized and can be monitored easily.
Plus, you can delegate or assume the responsibility for each task by yourself.
Cooperation
Collecting and rating ideas
The Creativity module enables all members to take part in idea finding and evaluation processes. In-formation can be collected, brainstormings conducted and opinions can be polled, all within the team and without effort. All evaluations are anonymous and are analyzed automatically.
Brainstormings and idea evaluations are done just like usual, only that with teamspace everything can be conducted timely asynchronous. You don’t have to find one single date where every team member has the time to take part, but can easily conduct the whole task over a certain longer period of time.
Files
With the module Files team members can exchange and work on files together. Access rights control who can read and/or change certain files. If a file is worked on, a version control prevents version er-rors by blocking the files for others.
Figure: Files
Leadership/management
teamspace interacts automatically with team members, if necessary. It sends reminders or status re-ports by e-mail and thereby keeps everyone in contact with his team. New developments within the team are reported by change reports. All activities in the team are logged automatically and a daily agenda shows every team member all tasks of the current day.
Benefits of working with teamspace
All team members have access to all important information and are notified automatically by teamspace about relevant changes.
Tasks are efficiently distributed and completed. Time tables with priorities help finishing tasks on time.
You can work on your tasks independent of office hours just like it suits your agenda best.
Team leaders and members can get an easy and complete overview of their work at all times. Team leaders get relieved of a lot of administration and controlling, especially those who lead several groups at the same time.
You can use teamspace instantly and without outside help and thus will experience fast and noticeable success in your work.
You don’t need any help from our or your IT-experts while working with teamspace. Every ad-justment to your team can be done without any background knowledge.
teamspace helps you make your group work more efficient and thereby improves the chances for suc-cess of each project. teamspace was created by 5 POINT AG to find a solution to the special prob-lems of virtual work in companies. The experiences of our customers worldwide, especially those of our lead user BMW, are reflected in the way we further develop teamspace. More than 6.000 teams all over the world used teamspace so far. The feedback of our users shows above all the user-friendliness of our solution and its great potential to improve efficiency in the daily work and thereby save costs.
Online Service on the Internet
Use teamspace on the Internet at www.teamspace.com
5 POINT AG runs the teamspace Online-Service on the Internet. You can rent and use single teams on our servers. The Online Service has many advantages:
No installations are needed on your Intranet or PC. You use the whole system on our servers.
teamspace is used and billed in single teams and short time periods.
You can test teamspace upfront for up to 30 days for free.
You can use the whole choice of modules of teamspace at once.
You have access to your team from every Internet port around the world.
On the Internet at www.teamspace.com
Fig.: Member login on the Internet
Licence fees per month (plus VAT):
Standard licence (up to 10 members and 50 MB): 35,- €
Additional 10 members per team and month: 10,- €
Additional 50 MB per team and month: 10,- €
Everything else about the Online Service you can find on our web pages at www.teamspace.com.
teamspace Enterprise Server
Use teamspace as an own Enterprise Server
For single projects and tasks it makes sense to use the Online Service. But if you work with teamspace regularly and intensively, you should have an own portal to support your teams. teamspace can be installed onto your Intranet or on an own server on the Internet. It gives you many advantages compared to the use in single teams at the Online Service:
You can support as many teams and team memberships per user as you want to for the same price.
teamspace can be adapted to your special needs, integrated into you EDP and expanded with new features and modules individually.
teamspace runs independent of all other software and doesn’t need any special requirements concerning hard- or software.
All data can be stored exclusively on your server.
We can install teamspace on one of your server or we can host your teamspace-server for you. If you run teamspace on a server on the Internet, you simplify access from outside your company, which is advisable particularly for companies that want to give access to other companies or to employees from outside the own Intranet.
Licence fees per year including support and updates (plus VAT)
The licence fees are calculated solely on the number of different users you have, no matter how many teams you have or in how many teams each user is a member. For example:
10 user: 540 EUR per year; 100 user: 3000 EUR per year 1000 user: 15.000 EUR per year; Unlimited: 24.000 EUR per year
Additional services
Installation: from 375,- €
Graphical adjustments from 750,- €
Web Hosting (per 50 MB incl. traffic, per year): 60,- €
Further adjustments and individual new developments on request.
Figure: Login of the teamspace-server
of BMW on the Internet
Reference: teamspace at BMW
The BMW Group in Munich uses a teamspace Enterprise Server licence since 2001. The server is installed at the data processing centre of 5 POINT AG in Frankfurt, Germany. BMW and their partners access their teamspace via Internet. Support and maintenance are done by 5 POINT AG. Regular updates give BMW access to all new developments of teamspace.
The BMW Advanced Training division was looking for an enterprise solution that would provide a platform for regular communication and interaction without the necessity of face-to-face contacts between trainer and trainee. The collaboration should take place in a collective virtual environment. The deciding factors for choosing teamspace of 5 POINT AG as BMW collaboration tool was among other things the easy implementation and the high user-friendliness of 5 POINT’s solution. It enabled BMW employees to use teamspace without any special training, which makes the transition to working with a collaboration tool much easier.
The main field of application of teamspace at BMW is in advanced training in the human resources division. In the context of Blended Learning, teamspace is used in all kinds of seminars and workshops to enable a close tutoring of each trainee by their trainers after the initial training is finished and to give the trainees easy access to all relevant information. Apart from advanced training teamspace is used in every part of the company where internal projects with one or more external partners have to be coordinated. One example is the R&D division, where BMW employees use teamspace to collaborate with partners from different suppliers.
This was achieved without actively promoting the new tool. The word about teamspace spreads only by mouth-to-mouth advertising. Employees who once used teamspace for one of their projects or trainings continue to use it themselves and recommend it to others. Given the large number of users, an average of 4 to 5 support request that reach BMW each week concerning the use of teamspace, is a very low number that proves the user-friendliness of teamspace.
BMW-teamspace on the Internet
About us
5 POINT AG specializes in IT-systems for connection of internal and external divisions in or between companies. We create modern applications to connect customers or suppliers to companies or to build networks for telecommuting or home offices.
From simple data exchange to interfaces or state-of-the-art web-based applications for you and your partners we offer fitting solutions for every need. Our choice contains all services from consulting and individual developments to complete products, support and training. We focus on the following areas:
Connection of customers and suppliers
We standardize activities and automatize processes between divisions and/or external partners and suppliers. Your processes become faster and can be handled more efficiently and with less errors.
Example: Automatic warranty processing, dealer intercompany comparisons
Optimization of distributed workflows
We support distributed working of groups that work together on a task from different locations and/or companies throughout the world.
Examples: teamspace, ProblemSolver
References
BMW: teamspace Enterprise Server
Daimler-Chrysler: teamspace Enterprise Server
Degussa: teamspace Online Service, ProblemSolver
Procter & Gamble: Project planning software DevelopmentAdvisor
SkodaAuto Deutschland: Management information system QuickCheck
SEAT Deutschland: Dealer intercompany comparison system HBV-Online
Contact
Konstantin Krümpel 5 POINT AG Heidelberger Str. 55-61 64285 Darmstadt/Germany Phone: +49 (0)6151-13097-13 ; Fax: +49 (0)6151-13097-10 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.teamspace.com ; www.5point.de
