The ColSpace Solution
Designed for just such collaboration, ColSpace’s Digital
Office™ tools provide users with an innovative and secure online
work area that can be accessed via the Internet from just about
anywhere with web access. Users can collaborate by posting and sharing
documents, as well as by exchanging feedback and other insights
via message boards and a built-in e-mail function. ColSpace sites
can be constructed as independent sites or integrated into client
sites - complete with client-determined branding and design elements.
After an initial consultation, ColSpace provided the Apple and OMD
team leads with a detailed customization questionnaire, which is
designed to help ColSpace and its clients establish and clarify
the goals in implementing the system. After determining from the
questionnaire how many different users or offices needed access
to the site and what features were most important to achieving Apples
functionality goals, ColSpace followed up with a set of site recommendations
for Apple’s approval. Once agreement was reached, the ColSpace
team began the design process in earnest.
“We knew that Digital Office would vastly improve the collaboration
process between Apple and OMD,” says ColSpace president Matthew
Greenhouse, “but we wanted to pay particular attention to
two challenges: the need to track file changes effectively, and
Apple’s desire for a way to disseminate news announcements
via the site.”
To meet the first challenge, Matthew’s team custom-developed
a file "version tracker" that not only recorded changes to posted
documents, including information about who had made the changes and
when, but also saved preceding versions in a layered archive that
team members could browse and pull information from. ColSpace also
developed an animated template on the site for announcements, which
were delivered by cleverly rendered cartoon spokesmen via speech bubbles
and captions.
File Management with Version
Tracking
Apple’s
Results... |
