open text_logo_2009.jpg Earlier this week we said we’d come back and have a deeper look at Open Text and the announcement that it has released key integrations between its eDocs Edition document management software and its Social Workplace software. Here's a closer look.

Due to be made available this fall, the integration is aimed at law firms and provides an alternative to firms that need SharePoint functionality, but don’t actually want to use SharePoint.

It does this by offering users the ability to collaborate on documents stored in eDocs repositories using features like instant messaging and micro-blogging while at the same time taking into account corporate permissions and governance rules.

Open Text's (news, site) announcement, which was made at the International Legal Technology Association conference currently being held in Las Vegas, also included the news that eDocs content is also being made available through the iPad.

Open Text’s Social Workplace

Open Text’s Social Workplace is the company’s social media component, which was added to Open Text’s Enterprise CMS platform in June 2009 and which was rebranded and upgraded earlier this summer as Social Workplace.

In June it continued to expand its original release with functionalities of blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 capabilities and -- more importantly for law firms -- information governance by adding social workplaces and social media marketing features as a result of the 2009 acquisition of Web CMS vendor Vignette.

open text Pulse_profile.jpg
Open Text Content Server Pulse
 

While there were many new features that will be of interest to law firms, particularly the behind-the-firewall abilities to create user profiles, follow colleagues and collaborate on projects, highlights of the June upgrade include:

  • Open Text Social Communities: Includes functionality like photo and video galleries, slideshows, comments, ratings, forums, idea management, profiling, microblogging.
  • Collaboration: Enterprise employees can interact and collaborate either in a stand-alone deployment, or as integration with the Open Text ECM Suite.
  • Open Text Content Server Pulse: Updates of their content server for content streaming via status updates and collaboration.

. . . [lawyers] require the type of secure environment that follows existing information governance rules and regulations. By integrating Open Text Social Workplace and eDOCS DM, law firms will have more options for collaborating on ideas, documents and matters with clients and employees that will be secured and stored within their eDOCS repository" Todd Partridge, eDOCS and Legal Solutions GM for Open Text said.

Open Text’s Social Workplace and eDocs

From the eDocs side, the most recent version is v5.3. For its part, it can control document-based knowledge assets by enabling users to capture, organize, locate and share business content in a secure, integrated and intuitive environment.

Content can be taken from e-mail, graphics and forms to discussion threads, scanned paper and electronic-based records, where it is consolidated in a unified enterprise repository for easy access and retrieval.

Users can also use Open Text’s records management as a result of native integration, search and access from within the native eDOCS user interface.

eDocs integrates with, and supports, the Windows 7 operating system and Microsoft Office 2010 for 32- and 64-bit platforms.

The final part of the ILTA announcement is that users will also be able to access all this from the iPad using OT’s WirelessDMS for eDOCS, which already supports the Blackberry. Open Text said they had to extend this functionality because of the large demand from legal professionals for access to content remotely.

The integrations between eDOCS Edition and Open Text Social Workplace will be available in the fall.