liatos

liatos is especially designed to support transparent communication. Because of it's very intuitive user role system, everyone in a particular workspace can easily participate in or can initiate enterprise discussions. litatos provides forum functionality in every work- or subspace. Every kind of content (except discussions) can be commented by users. Every work- or subspace can be configured to provide only the needed functionalities. For more official spaces the access can be opend for everyone or for "guests" who are not able to edit content. Moderators can configure workspaces and have access rights to change or delete content if necessary. liatos does not provide rating functionality. Blog functionality is currently under development.

liatos enables users to collaborate on and across all levels of an organization by providing workspaces and functionality with an easy and intuitive role system. The access to workspaces can be restricted on the level of individual users, by a general code, or it can be opend for everyone. Knowledge exchange is supported by providing discussions, materials (text creation), appointments, tasks, profile pages. Users can upload files to any kind of entry. They can structure the content with tag clouds, categories als well as by cross-linking any content within a workspace. Materials have version control and wiki export functionality. Appointments and tasks have export and subscription functionality. Workspaces can be configured to their functionality scope. Access control can easily be handled by protecting sensitive information in particular workspaces. liatos does not provide pdf- or word export,office integration bookmark-sharing tools, microblogs or a desktop connector.

liatos is not a social network as defined here. It focuses on team collaboration rather than on expert search or status following. However, liatos provides a profile page for every user where she or he can upload a photo, present contact information and give a free text description for skills, expertise or interest. liatos does also explicitly not provide access to a user's activity on the platform due to avoid activity control or group pressure. Our long-term scientific evaluation shows that such control can easily lead to activities that does not represent their work with the content.

liatos provides a personal space where users can collect content from any workspace she or he has access to. Users are able to give the content an individual structure by using tags, categories and cross-link functionality. Persoanl spaces are only accessible by the particular user. In addition, this space provides possibilities to integrate RSS feeds, twitter feeds, activitiy feeds from liatos workspaces and more. In addition, it provides advanced search options across workspaces and content types. This personal space is currently under development and will be available in autumn 2010.

liatos provides support for lightweight and communication-oriented project management. It's high usability allows project members to easily document project progress in a workspace. Announcement functionality can be used to give central information to all project members. The tasks functionality enables users to document task status, responsibility, estimated time budget and steps to document progress (time tracking). The tasks list gives an overview over current and finished tasks. Tasks can also be cross-linked to entries in the project calendar. Project results can be exported to a wiki page or in other workspaces. liatos explicitly does not provide folder-based file management. Instead, it supports users by structuring their content in a more flexible and topic related way with cross-links, categories and tag clouds.

liatos is availabe either as a software, as a service solution or as an on-premise solution that can be installed on any server and that can be adjusted to a company's specific infrastructure and requirements. It works best on a linux system with an apache web server and a mySQL data base. It's user management can be coupled to a company's own system like LDAP or AD. It follows standards of data exchange and web representation. Basing on open source components, it is possible to extend features due to specific requirements. It is highly scalable and proven in large organizations with about 30.000 users. liatos is available in German and English.

Every workspace can be configured to select only needed functionality. In addition, some extensions and plug-ins can be restricted or provided portal-wide. The look-and-feel of workspaces can also be adjusted by selecting colours, a background image and a logo. The portal of the system can also be adjusted to a corporate design. liatos explicitly does not provide configuration on a personal level to to ensure best-possible usability. The design philosphy of ensuring that all users see the content in the same way proved to enhance usability. One exception is the personal space which allows personalization with widgets. liatos is professionally provided by the effective WEBWORK GmbH and it profits from an active developer community around the open source components like CommSy or PmWiki.

liatos has a very easy and intuitive rights management. Every member of a workspace has the same rights and has access to everything the others have. Exceptions are: users can determine wether an entry is editable by others or not; moderators of a workspace can edit everything and are able to configure the workspace. This role model ensures that access rights are very transparent to all users. liatos uses TLS/SSL encoding. The SaaS solution runs on redundant hardware, is protected by firewalls, has a direct connection to 110 GBit backbone. The data processing centre has security services, physical access control and fire control. In additon liatos provides security by 24x7-monitoring of the servers, virus scanning, regular backups, no Java applets or ActiveX components and by following privacy laws. SSO and LDAP are supported.

effective WEBWORK GmbH was founded in 2007 by two core developers of the groupware tool CommSy. The company has expertise in web development and groupware functionality since 1999. Currently they supply Web 2.0 tools for large organisations with thousands of users. effective WEBWORK GmbH focuses on usability and the process of integrating such tools in particular working contexts. liatos uses the actual CommSy releases which are frequently released since 1999.

liatos is a full-service package that also includes support service. Support is provided by the effective WEBWORK GmbH. In addition, the company works closely together with the CommSy developer and user community. They have continous online discussions with users and developers. This ensures further development that fits users requirements and ensures the high usability standard. The system has been scientifically evaluated by university partners which reqularly publish whitepapers about best practices.