The Beverley, Massachusetts-based company, which was founded by Ray Ozzie the creator of Lotus Notes, says its new Groove Workspace Project Edition offering integrates collaboration tools from TeamDirection Inc, a Bellevue, Washington-based software company that specializes in project management software tools. TeamDirections’ flagship product – TeamDirection Project – includes project creation tools, status view, role-based permissions, and integration with Microsoft Corp’s Project application. A front-end component, called TeamDirection Dashboard, provides cross-project views, filtering and sorting capabilities, and related discussion access.
According to Groove officials, project management and collaboration tools have traditionally been kept separate, often resulting in the use of multiple, disconnected desktop-based applications and tools – Microsoft Project (for managing tasks and resources), email and Web conferencing (for company-wide communication) and virtual meeting rooms (for information sharing).
This often forces project managers to manually re-enter project updates into a static project document, which is then distributed to team members, Groove claims. The integration of server-based collaboration platform and project management tools under a single platform allows distributed teams to manage and execute projects far more efficiently.
To simplify that project management process, Groove Workspace Project Edition consolidates all the necessary tools into a single platform that lets project managers create a workspace, and add data manually or through a link to an existing project template or Microsoft Project plan. Team members are invited (via e-mail or IM) to participate in the workspace and each receive a shared, synchronized copy of the tools and project data. The solution also incorporates Groove’s multi-level presence awareness software to pinpoint active workspace members.
The aim of the integration between the two technologies is to elevate traditional project management practice to a team-sport that engenders a collective sense of responsibility for project objectives. One of the biggest benefits of the Groove and TeamDirection offering is that it helps distribute project accountability throughout the team, said Richard Eckel, vice president of marketing communications at Groove.
Groove Workspace Project Edition is priced at $199. Groove Workspace and TeamDirection Project are still available for purchase separately. A time-limited discounted price of $2,195 is currently being offered for the Groove Starter Kit for Projects package – comprising 10 copies of Groove Workspace Project Edition software and online training.
Source: Computerwire
