PBworks Project Edition and Legal Edition Now Features Social Collaboration Update

PBworks, a provider of hosted collaboration solutions for business and education, has announced its Social Collaboration Update for PBworks Project Edition and Legal Edition, which integrates social media-style user profiles and micro-blogging functions.

 

The integration of social networking and micro-blogging with wiki-style authoring, document management, and project management can now help customers to use social media tools within the enterprise to boost team performance and productivity, said Jim Groff, CEO at PBworks.

 

Getting work done is what makes all this Web 2.0 technology relevant to solving real business problems, said Groff, adding that the Social Collaboration Update makes social media a practical and productive tool for working together.

 

The Social Collaboration Update includes three key components -- user profiles, micro-blogging, and e-mail integration. The feature of user profiles allow companies to specify which fields to include -- office location, department, relevant skills and experience, and more. Company officials said that this converts a company’s PBworks Network into a searchable personnel roster.

 

Moreover, user profiles automatically include a list of the user’s contributions such as edits and file uploads, as well as tasks each user is working on. In addition, PBworks is also supporting real-time Twitter-style micro-blogging with this release, facilitating unstructured collaboration such as brainstorming and discussions.

 

Officials said that once users’ ideas begin to develop and mature, they can be transferred to wiki pages for more structured collaboration. Also, Micro-blogging is integrated with a user’s overall activity stream -- edits, file uploads, and more -- offering a comprehensive and contextual view of what employees are thinking and doing.

 

Additionally, with this latest update, PBworks has made it easier to transition users from email threads to online collaboration by enabling email-to-workspace integration. Officials said that authorized users can add wiki pages and upload files by sending an email.

 

Automatically, PBworks creates a corresponding wiki page with timestamp, records the author, and includes any email attachments as links to uploaded files. Officials said that entire discussions can be transferred to PBworks by forwarding the most recent entry to a workspace.

 

“PBworks connects our employees with the information and other people they need to get their work done more efficiently and effectively, and offers administrators like me the tools to manage all these users and workspaces,” said Brian Volken, global support director at Nobel (News - Alert) Biocare.

 

Gwen Jorgens, AVP at RBC Wealth Management, said that PBworks gives the company tools for connecting people across the world. Noting that the email integration is key for encouraging rapid adoption, he added, “It gives people an easy and familiar way to get content into PBworks.”

 

The Social Collaboration Update is now available as a free upgrade to PBworks Project Edition and Legal Edition. Officials said that new customers receive the update as part of their Project Edition or Legal Edition purchase.