Weblog BOOZTER - English Edition

Backup Enforcer makes sure all Groove workspaces are backed up

A few weeks ago, HOMMES & PROCESS announced GrooveIT! for Microsoft Office Outlook and GrooveIT! for Microsoft SharePoint compatibility with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010.

We are pleased to let you know that Backup Enforcer also passed successfully the Windows 7 compatibility test.

Backup Enforcer ensures your Groove data backup

Use Backup Enforcer to ensure all Groove users’ workspaces are correctly backed up.

How does Backup Enforcer work?

For all Groove workspaces, it continually verifies the backup agent’s presence and, where missing, invites it so that all data is correctly protected against loss: machine crashes or theft, accidental deletion of workspace or files, etc. With Backup Enforcer in use, data recovery will only cost a phone call to the administrator.

 

Use Backup Enforcer in a flexible way according to your organization’s security policies

With Backup Enforcer, you can adapt usage according to the internal policies: personalized configuration enables workspace exclusion, Groove identities selection, etc.
There are different ways to use Backup Enforcer:

• Flexible mode, enabling users to choose some of their own options.
• Silent mode, where everything is centrally configured and all actions take place invisibly in the background.

Do not hesitate to contact us to get a free trial version.

Workspace Dashboard: a single place to manage offline and online collaboration with Microsoft® Office SharePoint® and Microsoft® Office Groove®.

HOMMES & PROCESS launches a new Groove Workspace solution called Workspace Dashboard. Workspace Dashboard is dedicated to organizing and scheduling team projects within Microsoft Office SharePoint. Using a single dashboard, it also provides a social mapping tool allowing human resources departments to analyze social networks within their organizations.

Workspace Dashboard enables the creation of projects sites within SharePoint and can also generate templates for Microsoft Office Groove workspaces which will be used to coordinate and standardize online and offline collaboration.

Key benefits

Online collaboration or centralized mode with SharePoint enables:

• Convenient supervision
• Usage reporting
• Project life cycle management

Offline collaboartion, or decentralized mode, with Office Groove 2007 enables:

• Mobile teams collaboration (without or bad internet connection)
• Agile teamwork – Cross-organization projects
• Security is always on – encrypted data storage and transfer.

 

How does it work?

The main site enables users to search for existing projects and easily view the most recent changes. A collaborator can join a project or create a new one when this is an authorized option. A new project involves the creation of a new SharePoint project site and new Groove Workspaces. The project manager will then be able to invite his/her team members, assign them roles and give them access to the SharePoint site or to the Groove workspace(s) or both.

Each project site allows working with documents, files and/or business forms. These data are  synchronized in the corresponding Groove workspace. Also workspace member management can be handled by project: member invitations, role assignments, project access management.

According to the project requirements and defined user rights, a project member can work within the SharePoint project site or within Groove workspaces. When a project has terminated, it can be closed and archived. When needed, a project can be easily restored on request.

The Groove workspace reflects the content of the SharePoint site. It enables mobile and offline use. Additional tools are available if needed for mobile users.

The social mapping tool can help Human Resources departments identify the links between users, learn about who is working with whom, view the most successful projects and identify expert profiles within the organization. This kind of valuable information translated into graphical schemes can help make the right decisions when dealing with Human Resources.

A capacity planning functionality is available to help managers, analyze application use, plan the resources needed to make it work better and make sure users get the required service level at controlled costs.

Learn more about Workspace Dashboard solution

Discover the range dedicated to the managers

Expert Solutions: Trusted Domain Services and Backup Enforcer solution

Discover expert solutions by HOMMES & PROCESS to benefit from:

• Centralized management of Groove users
• Secure data transactions
• Corporate policy compliance
• Enterprise intellectual property protection

Management solutions by HOMMES & PROCESS

• Trusted domain services

Trusted domain services permit the creation of managed Groove environments that can be customized for user teams that complies with corporate standards security policies.

Discover the advantages of the Trusted domain services

 

Backup Solutions by HOMMES & PROCESS

The HOMMES & PROCESS backup solutions assure that all Groove workspaces are properly backed up, allowing data recovery at any time.  Groove users invite a backup agent into their workspaces in order to make sure they will be correctly backed up.

The challenge:
Make sure Groove users have invited or will invite the company’s backup agent into all existing workspaces.

• Back up Enforcer

The Backup Enforcer solution(1) eliminates the risk of omission as it checks the backup agent’s presence in each and every workspace. When Backup Enforcer does not find the backup agent in a workspace, it automatically sends an invitation to the domain’s backup agent.

IT administrators will be reassured knowing that all Groove data are correctly backed up thanks to the Backup Enforcer. Moreover, this makes for compliance to corporate policies while at the same time end users do not have to bother about backups.

Finally, HOMMES & PROCESS can help organizations implement and maintain their Groove backup infrastructure.

Learn more about Backup Enforcer

Contact us about Backup Enforcer or Trusted domain service

(1)Requirement: A Groove Backup Server must be already in place and a backup agent invited into each workspace.

Video GrooveIT! for Microsoft Outlook

Recently Fabrice Barbin registered with BrainSonic, a short video (in french) to present HOMMES & PROCESS, GrooveIT! for Microsoft Office Outlook, and the GrooveIT! product line development, particulary GrooveIT! for My Documents currently in Beta.

As a reminder, GrooveIT! for Microsoft Office Outlook is an application, embedded in Outlook, that allows users to send - automatically or on demand - emails, contacts, calendars, tasks and RSS feeds from Outlook to Groove workspaces. A"Must Have" for Groove-Outlook users !

GrooveIT! for Microsoft Office Outlook
by HommesEtProcess

He uses it every day…

David Elfassy, Netlogon – Canada :

What are the benefits of using GrooveIT! for you?
"The ability to share and archive information in a central location that is easily accessible to all team users. Groove IT! rocks, and I recommend it to all Groove and Outlook users. This tool solidifies Office Groove as the best collaboration tool for our teams!”

It's all about Person 2 Person, Partner 2 Partner, P2P, Business, Trust, ...

It's All About Groove Book

Groove dans votre main

Those who need to use Groove in an industrial or austere environment can be very interested by our UMPC (Ultra Mobile Portable Computer) which is born some months ago through a common Microsoft and Intel project called the Origami Project http://www.origamiproject.com
Groove on a Samsung Q1
(Click on the image to enlarge it)

We have a full usage scenario available to you. It includes Groove, TeamCalendarManager  and many other very interesting things ...

About GForceBackup, an archiving solution for Groove

You need to archive Groove spaces easily without a central server? Then use GForceBackup for Groove Virtual Office or Microsoft Office Groove. We work closely with Dicodemy Inc to put this tool on the market. More details here or here http://www.gforcebackup.hommesetprocess.com/

On parle de Groove dans la presse technique...

Notre quipe technique vient de faire publier dans le numro de fvrier du mensuel "Programmez!" un article de 5 pages sur Groove Virtual Office.

Outre une prsentation de l'architecture spcifique de Groove, cet article explique galement en dtails l'exploitation des Web Services exposs par Groove Virtual Office au sein d'une application DotNet. L'explication du fonctionnement est illustre au travers d'un exemple concret, complet et dont le code est entirement comment.

Un bon moyen de prendre connaissance des capacits techniques de Groove, qui au del d'un outil fonctionnellement riche et simple d'usage, cache des capacits d'extension et d'intgration trs importantes.

Enfin une solution pour la (vraie) mobilit !

Jusqu' il y a encore peu de temps, un collaborateur travaillant en dplacement devait se contenter de faibles dbits de donnes Internet, tels ceux proposs par le GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). A dfaut, il devait le plus souvent se rendre physiquement dans une zone couverte par des bornes Wi-fi (802.11) ou des rseaux fixes pour travailler.

La technologie UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) existe aujourd'hui dans la plupart des grandes villes : elle facilite les connections Internet, mais demeure encore trs onreuse et ne couvre qu'une bien faible partie du territoire franais.

En ce sens galement, certains constructeurs permettent des applications mtiers trs cibles d'associer faible dbit rseau et efficacit applicative, mais le coût de ces solutions demeure encore trop lev au regard du service propos. Il n'est donc pas aujourd’hui possible, dans la grande majorit des cas, de se connecter Internet dans un train en transit ou sur une aire de parking tout en gardant l’accs l'ensemble de ses applications d'entreprise. D’autant plus que les clients ou fournisseurs soucieux, juste titre, d’assurer la scurit de leurs propres rseaux, ne permettent gure une personne extrieure de se plugger sur "leur" connexion Internet et qu’il faut tre confront une technicit non ngligeable pour utiliser les VPN traditionnels …

« La semaine dernire, en cette priode de closing, j'ai t en situation de mobilit trs forte travers la France et j'ai eu l'agrable surprise, au-del de tout discours marketing ou thorique, de constater que la technologie Edge dveloppe par Bouygues Tlcom tait plus qu’efficace. A titre d'exemple : sur un trajet long Rennes-Grenoble en TGV puis en train rgional, la "continuit de service" tait quasiment parfaite. Bien videmment, les passages sous les tunnels coupaient les communications et, sur les tronons trs haute vitesse-300 Km/h, la commutation entre les diffrentes cellules relais rduisait le dbit nominal efficace. Mais quel progrs !

En y regardant de plus prs, je notais que l'utilisation de navigateurs Web et d'applications d'entreprise au format Web souffrait encore de grosses faiblesses : ces dernires ne supportent dcidment pas le mode dconnect ...

En revanche, l'utilisation de Groove Virtual Office®, solution collaborative de nouvelle gnration de Microsoft, a montr toute sa force de "lisseur de flux", toute sa capacit de synchronisation transparente des deltas de donnes, sa force remarquable pour ce qui concerne l'accs en continu aux donnes et la continuit des services applicatifs.

Nos clients vont maintenant pouvoir profiter pleinement des solutions que nous proposons sous Groove Virtual Office® : notre partenariat data avec Bouygues Telecom et la nouvelle technologie Edge nous conforte dans nos parti pris concernant la mobilit en entreprise. »

Jean-Michel Davault

De la rsilience des oprations

Les organisations internationales oeuvrant pour la paix ou pour venir en aide aux populations en situations de crise connaissent et utilisent aujourd'hui sur sites les bureaux virtuels Groove®. C'est en particulier le cas des ONG qui bnficient, avec Groove Virtual Office®, d'une infrastructure robuste et scurise adapte leurs activits sur le terrain. En effet, les bureaux virtuels Groove® garantissent un travail en continuit, c'est dire sans interruption lie un environnement austre qui volue le plus souvent de manire alatoire : l'absence de rseau n'impacte pas le travail des quipes et la destruction d'un lment de l'architecture technique n'entrave pas ce mme travail.

La "rsilience des oprations" qui caractrise Groove® carte ainsi tout risque de cessation d'activit ou d'vaporation de contenu qui dcouleraient des systmes mis en place avant ou dans l'urgence aprs une catastrophe naturelle. C'est galement le cas lors de crises aux origines humaines, telles que les guerres ou les attentats, qui ncessitent une intervention des ONG rapide et la plus spontane possible mais surtout continue, coordonne et efficiente sur sites.

Groove Virtual Office® contribue ce que les informations soient persistantes et embarques dans de telles circonstances des coûts dix fois infrieurs en moyenne par rapport des solutions plus classiques du march.