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Using GroupWise Corporate Instant Messenger to improve Collaboration and Productivity

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5 March 2010 - 4:26pm
Submitted by: battala

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By Rajesh Battala

GroupWise Messenger has a lot of features which help increase productivity and collaboration in the workplace. This article explains how to get maximum work productivity from GroupWise Messenger. I have shared some tips which show how to quickly send messages or join chat rooms where you can discuss the most sensitive corporate topics without fear of hackers listening in.

Adding users

To start a conversation with a user, you need to add them to your buddy list. GroupWise Messenger provides different ways of adding an user to the list.

  1. Actions -> Add Contact
    If the user id is known, then directly provide it. Otherwise, use "Search for a user" and add.

    Click to view.

  2. You can also add a user via commands. This method will help developers and web pages to add the user to the list.

Examples

NOTE: Execute all the "nim" commands from start > run dialog.

  • nim:addContact?username=brajesh@novell.com
    When this command is executed, if the user is valid GroupWise will add the user to the main list.
  • nim:addContact?username=brajesh@novell.com&foldername=myteam
    This command will add the user to the "myteam" list in the client. ( The myteam list should be created before trying this command.)
  • A user can specify in his web-profile or any webpage to add his contact to the list with the following snippet ( will work in IE):
    <html><body>
<a href="nim:addContact?username=support@novell.com&foldername=helpdesk"> Contact Support </a>
</body></html>

    If the user clicks on "Contact Support" then the user support@novell.com will get added to the client and the user can start a conversation.

    The above feature helps a lot in adding the users easily.

    If a group of users want to share their GroupWise Messenger lists, the Import and Export feature will let users import a person's contact list.

Managing users with logical folders

GroupWise provides a "folder" feature where users can manage their lists in a neat way, like adding all the team members to a list called "My Team."

Use Actions -> Add Folder to create new List or Folder.

To add users to the list you can either Drag and Drop existing users to the list, or right-click and select "Add Contact".

Advantages with Folder/lists:

  1. Send E-mail to all the users in a list. Just right-click and click e-mail, then GroupWise Client will start and opens a new mail-compose window with "To" field filled with all the visible-users in that list.
  2. Send a BroadCast message to all the users in that particular list at one time.
  3. GroupWise Conference can be easily managed with these lists. Right-click and click "send message" -- a Conference request will be sent automatically to all the visible users in the list and collaboration will be achieved perfectly.
  4. Viewing the History chat with the users in the particular list.

All these folder/list features help to manage the conversations and work together well.

Chat Room

GroupWise Instant Messenger provides a "Chat Room" feature which helps groups hold a quick meeting. To find and join the available chat rooms, go to Tools > Chat Rooms.

Click to view.

The Chat Rooms dialog will appear, populating the available chat room and the number of people in the chat room. Select a relevant chat room and click Join. Then you will be joined in the chat room and can participate in the discussion.

Adding, deleting, and managing the access rights of the Chat Rooms is done by the GroupWise administrator.

Working with Status Messages

The Status Message of a user helps others who want to have a conversation with them. GroupWise provides three kinds of Status : Online (Available), Busy, and Away. Users can add special custom messages as well -- like Busy (In Conference Meeting).

Integration of GWIM status with GroupWise Mail Client

When a user is logged into GWIM, if someone opens the GW Client, then the person's status will be shown next to his name, showing whether he is idle, online, or busy. This is one of the good integrations that help people know who is available for instant collaboration.

Advance Startup Options

GroupWise Messenger can be started on Windows start-up by checking the option:
"Run GroupWise Messenger When Windows Starts"

Click to view.

Offline Contacts

This feature helps a user in many ways.

When a conversation is going on, if a user suddenly goes offline, then the Messenger will send the message as a mail to the user which will keep the user aware of the conversation. This will help the users to keep track of the entire conversation.

To enable this feature:

  1. Go to Tools -> options -> Messages
  2. Select the option "Send e-mail when I start a message to an offline contact"

Click to view.

Privacy

If a user wants to hide the status messages or if you don't want to hear from some people when you are busy, there are some privacy settings that are very helpful. You can block the users you are not interested in communicating with.

To enable this privacy feature:

Go to Tools -> Options -> privacy.

In this dialog, contacts added in the "BLOCK" side won't be able to see your status and they won't be able to send you an instant message.

Click to view.

Storing the Logs/History Locally

GroupWise supports saving conversations automatically on the client machine by enabling the option:

Tools -> Options -> History. (Store Conversations locally).
The messages are stored in well-formatted manner. You can decide where the logs will be stored. This will help you save the logs in remote network drives by mounting them as network drives.
The Messenger will get auto-connect from the network disconnect.

Using the Messenger as an Advanced User (using commands )

  1. To launch the Messenger with a username(battala) and with ip(164.102.10.1)
    nim:launchNM /u-battala /ipa-164.102.10.1
  2. To launch the Messenger
    nim:launchNM
  3. To send instant message to a particular user
    nim:startim?username=brajesh&message=hi Good Morning.How are you
  4. To set any preferences of the Messenger
    nim:preferences
  5. To join the chat room (meeting1) directly.
    nim:joinChat?roomname=meeting1
  6. GroupWise Messenger supports multi-session clients.
    To start another GroupWise Client session the command is
    nim:launchNM /multi
  7. Command to exit from the session
    nim:exit

Conclusion:

These features and tips reveal the richness and friendliness of GroupWise Messenger, which will helps the corporate user to collaborate well with their colleagues, and stay connected.

Note: GroupWise Instant Messenger is a feature of GroupWise, and is not sold separately. If the full GroupWise client for Window, Mac, and Linux isn’t in your budget, there’s another option. GroupWise Instant Messenger comes with the WebAccess version of GroupWise – which is a less-expensive alternative to the full GroupWise Client. You can buy the WebAccess version from here.

More Articles about GroupWise Corporate Instant Messenger


Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.



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