Collanos Blog

We are constantly being asked about new features, if and when they would be incorporated into the solution offering. Additionally, we are getting also many great suggestions and features requests, posted directly to the user forum.

In the hope of relieving you at least partly from your anxiety, we decided to compile a “short list” of areas that we will very likely address in the next one or two Collanos Workplace releases.

• Calendar, including simple synchronization with popular web calendar(s)
• File system integration (synchronizing folders of the operating system)
• Search functionality across all your workspaces
• Organizing and grouping of all your workspaces with keywords-based tagging or categories
• Saving objects like Emails, Contacts and Calendar Events from popular Groupware applications
• More transparent synchronization, show content replication details and new options to influence
• Support of multiple devices with only one unique Collanos Name
• Workspace templates, incl. template Web publishing to exchange with others
• Further improvements in task and project management
• Additional contact management and user profile improvements
• Expand historical change logs, to include all system objects and user actions

Please continue to tell us what you would like to see incorporated next in our releases. Feature requests stemming from real, daily, and intensive practical use take precedence from long theoretical “wish lists” of possible features. In any case, any and all ideas, suggestions and votes are welcome. Please post directly to the feature request section on Collanos Forum. Thank you for your contributions.

Collanos Workplace 1.4. integrates Collanos Phone’s voice functions. Three voice services are now available to teams.

1. Call Your Contacts/Members for Free

You can call any other Collanos user for free, if the connection can be established directly over the Internet. These direct calls can be set up in a number of ways. Generally, the command is contained in the context menu if you click on the contact or member directly. Sometimes you will also find a “Call” button in Collanos Workplace’s tool bar. When such a direct free call is established between two Collanos users, the Collanos Phone application will open automatically on both sides.

2. Call Your Contacts’/Members’ Regular Phone Numbers (Dial-Out Premium Service)

If you have purchased dial-out credit, you can call Collanos Workplace contacts and members on their regular phones. To do this, use again the context menu, but select “Dial-Out” and then one of the available numbers “Office”, “Home” or “Mobile”.

Phone Numbers in User Profile
Each Collanos user can set and change his regular phone numbers in his or her own user profile. Fill out these fields so that your contacts and friends are able to contact you even when you are not in from of your computer.

Purchase Dial-Out Phone Credit (Premium Service)
Dialing-out to regular phone numbers is a premium service. To be able to use this service, users need to purchase dial-out credit on Collanos’ secure web shop, using a VISA or MasterCard credit card.

Voice Box and Redirect Feature
Quite interesting especially for traveling users are the voice box and the call-redirect feature. Settings for these features can be made on the user’s account pages on Collanos’ secure web site.

Voice messages left for the user on his voice box are automatically forwarded to the user’s email.

Call Redirect redirects calls intended for Collanos Phone to a regular phone number, for instance to a mobile phone. Your team members and contacts will still be able to call you for free on your Collanos Phone, but the calls will be redirected to another number after a defined time. This feature is automatically available for all users that have a positive phone credit balance on their account.

3. High-quality Team Calls

There are two different kinds of team calls available in Collanos Workplace.

• The first is based on the central conference service and supporting up to 10 participants.
• The second is working between Collanos Phones only (no central server involved), but is limited to 3 participants.

The advantage of the central service is that conference call details such as “Subject”, “Description” and “List of Participants” are being sent by Workplace message as well as by Email to all participants. The Collanos Phone based conference on the other hand is directly calling the other two participants.

You can start a conference call by clicking on the button in Collanos Workplace’s toolbar at any time:

Central Conference Service
To establish a call based on the central conference service, use the first tab and fill in the form, such as:

• Conference call subject
• Conference call description (e.g. an agenda or the goals of this call)
• PIN code to protect the call
• Delay before the call starts (a good idea is to give a 5 or 15 minutes advance notice before starting)
• Desired participants

After starting such a conference call by clicking on “Start” button, all participants will receive a notification message, both in form of a Workplace chat message (system generated) and email notification. The email notification has one additional element, it contains a web link to automatically join the call.

Collanos Phone Conference
To establish a Conference Call that is started directly from your Collanos Phone, as well as the audio mixed on your local computer, use the second tab.

For some time already I was looking for a tool that would eliminate a need for sending files back and forth between people collaborating on the same project.

While I’m perfectly aware of various solutions such as wikis, version control systems or online office suites, I didn’t feel like I could convince my collaborators to use any of these. One of the reasons is always a feeling of insecurity when using publicly hosted platform (BTW, this is not that uncommon among scientists - I know at least one scientific institution in Western Europe that explicitly forbids using Google apps, especially Gmail for work-related stuff, because of Google’s privacy policy). The other reason was that such solutions are not the best choice when working on binary files (most of my projects do not involve collaborative programming).

When I stumbled across Collanos Workplace, which offers peer-to-peer synchronization (although without revision control), instead of a central-server based, I’ve decided to give it a try. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been using Collanos to collaborate on one relatively simple project and the experience was quite positive.

At first, I thought that Collanos may serve mainly as a tool for secure peer-to-peer files sharing with an information who changed what. It turned out that this is a capable project management application, that has a chat and discussion panel, one can post notes, links, add tasks and assign them to team members. Files are stored is a separate directory - after one adds a file to Collanos, it should be opened from the application, not from original folder. This seemed a mistake in design at first, but I appreciated it very quickly. Synchronization of project directory would mean sharing all of its contents and that can be sometimes in the range of many GBs. From time to time some bug appeared here or there, but overall it worked as expected. Peer-to-peer sharing means that both people have to be online for synchronization, but so far situation that I switched computer off before a person could download my changes happened only once and it was during a weekend.

As a side note, it’s nice to see that Eclipse becomes an application platform for quite a number of programs. See for example this list of Eclipse-based software.

About the author:
Pawel Szczesny is a bioinformatics researcher at Polish Academy of Sciences and blogger over at Freelancing Science.

Swiss startup Collanos Software receives prestigious award in San Diego

Collanos Software, the developer of Collanos Workplace that allows teams to collaborate electronically over the Internet, was a winner of the Red Herring 100 Global award. Red Herring, an international media company, thereby recognized Collanos as one of the world’s top 100 startups. In addition to Collanos, the Swiss companies Axes Systems, CarryQuote, Museeka and Secu4 were also prize recipients.

Innovation, management, global strategy, financial performance, and environmental integration are the criteria Red Herring, a media company, uses to rate promising, up-and-coming companies in bestowing its Global award. The fact that Switzerland serves as a prime location for innovation was highlighted by five Swiss startups receiving the Red Herring 100 Global award. Besides Collanos, these included Axes Systems, CarryQuote, Museeka and Secu4.

In professional circles, the awards are considered the ultimate prize for innovative technology and are thus highly coveted. Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software, was highly pleased with the outcome and said, “Being recognized by Red Herring 2008 in Europe and now globally as one of the most promising companies makes us very proud. It proves to me that when it comes to the current international software and Internet markets, Zurich and Switzerland hold a place in the middle of the ‘virtual Silicon Valley’. The fact that four other Swiss companies besides Collanos received awards is testament to Switzerland’s role as a technology center.”

In December 2008, Collanos launched the latest version of Collanos Workplace 1.4 as a comprehensive unified collaboration solution. Shared use of information and project management processeswithin teams is now supplemented by new voice and video functions. Recently, the company announced it had registered its 25,000th active Collanos user.

For additional information about the Red Herring 100 Global, please go to http://www.herringevents.com/global08/index.html

Schweizer Start-up Collanos Software in San Diego mit dem prestigeträchtigen Award ausgezeichnet

Collanos Software, Anbieterin von Collanos Workplace für die elektronische Zusammenarbeit von Teams im Internet, hat den Red Herring 100 Global Award gewonnen. Das weltweit tätige Medien-Unternehmen Red Herring zeichnet Collanos damit als eines der besten 100 globalen Start-ups aus. Neben Collanos wurden in San Diego die Schweizer Unternehmen Axes Systems, CarryQuote, Museeka und Secu4 geehrt.

Finanzielle Leistungsfähigkeit, Innovation, Management, globale Strategie und Integration ins Ökosystem – anhand dieser Kriterien bewertet das Medien-Unternehmen Red Herring vielversprechende aufstrebende Unternehmen für seinen weltweiten Award. Wie positiv sich die Innovationskraft und der Standortvorteil der Schweiz auswirkt, unterstreicht die Auszeichnung von gleich fünf Schweizer Start-ups mit dem Red Herring 100 Global Award. Neben Collanos sind das Axes Systems, CarryQuote, Museeka und Secu4.

Die Awards gelten in Fachkreisen als Ritterschlag in der Innovationstechnologie und sind entsprechend prestigeträchtig. Peter Helfenstein, CEO von Collanos Software, ist hoch erfreut: „Von Red Herring 2008 zunächst in Europa und nun sogar weltweit als eines der zukunftsträchtigsten Unternehmen gesehen zu werden, erfüllt uns mit Stolz. Es ist für mich der Beweis, dass für den heute globalen Software- und Internetmarkt Zürich und die Schweiz mitten ins „virtuelle Silicon Valley“ gerückt sind. Dass neben uns noch vier weitere Schweizer Unternehmen ausgezeichnet wurden, spricht klar für den Technologiestandort Schweiz.“

Collanos lancierte die neuste Version von Collanos Workplace 1.4 im Dezember 2008 als umfassende Unified Collaboration Lösung. Gemeinsames Nutzen von Informationen und Projektmanagement im Team werden neu ergänzt durch Voice- und Videofunktionen. Kürzlich konnte der 25’000ste aktive registrierte Collanos-Benutzer vermeldet werden.

Weitere Informationen zu Red Herring 100 Global unter http://www.herringevents.com/global08/redherring100.html

beteo profits from combining Collanos Workplace and Collanos Phone with LumiPBX

From day one, the young and innovative consulting firm beteo AG has used an outsourced LumiPBX phone system developed by Translumina Networks. beteo has unparalleled expertise in the area of SAP Application Lifecycle Management and provides consulting services to international, large-scale companies that use SAP’s standard software. Specifically, beteo helps them to set up and design their SAP systems to ensure that when these are re-configured or applications need to be changed, the flexibility of the company and its IT system are not impaired in the short- or long-term.

All beteo employees use Collanos Phone, a software-only phone that is installed on a given computer. This soft-client is fully integrated in LumiPBX as well as in the Collanos teamwork network used intensively at beteo. As a result, beteo’s Collanos users can make calls to anywhere in the world at no charge. The only requirement for this phone service to function in the Collanos network is computer access to the Internet. Employees can thus be reached by phone anywhere on the planet at their own phone number or their Collanos name.

Calls made from Collanos Phone or Collanos Workplace to a public-switched telephone network are inexpensively routed through the LumiPBX switchboard. Dieter Steiger, founder and CEO of beteo, opted for this solution since Collanos Phone functions very similarly to a normal telephone and beteo’s projects require teams to have flexible and interlinked communications. As a result, beteo no longer had to consider buying a large number of phones, and employees who travel continuously from one customer to the next throughout Europe benefit from a tremendous level of flexibility.

According to Steiger, whose rapidly growing company already has more than 20 employees in Germany and Switzerland, LumiPBX is ideally suited for small and medium-sized companies. In his opinion, the system is easily managed and operated in businesses employing anywhere from 10 to 500 people. He believes that LumiPBX makes sense if a company needs a simple telephone switchboard, employees are to be reached via the company’s phone number, and answering machines or voice mail are to be used.

With a little bit of experience, getting new employees used to the system is straightforward, says Steiger. In contrast to the past when internal telephony was controlled from a complex switchboard and the assistance of an external expert was required, beteo employees are now independantly able to setup new hires or re-assigned personnel on the system. The company thereby gains a greater degree of autonomy and flexibility, lauds Steiger.

Steiger and his beteo employees don’t need a home-office connection either, since Collanos Phone or an IP phone provides them with all necessary functions wherever they are – even at home.

“Thanks to the LumiPBX-integrated Collanos Phone, we hardly use mobile phones any more for international calls. That lets us save so much money that even private calls are of no consequence,” he explains, adding, “If beteo employees make a habit of using the new platform for business and personal use, the company will definitely benefit from that.”

LumiPBX incorporates many more functions than beteo needs. beteo only uses automatic call forwarding for calls to the head office, which are then routed to the administrative department. Due to cost reasons, incoming calls are not automatically routed to mobile phones. One much-used feature is the ability to forward voice mails to employee e-mail addresses.

LumiPBX and Collanos Phone offer the advantage of using the public phone network worldwide at very low rates, while also enabling telephony to be easily integrated into beteo’s Collanos Collaboration network. “As a result, the already outstanding close collaboration with customers and project partners is now supplemented with voice services at no charge. We always wanted to have a low-cost call-out function for our teamwork environment. We finally have it and it is working out perfectly!” says Steiger pleased.

About the author:
Claudia Poggiolini is a freelance journalist and author working for corporate communications of Translumina Networks, a Collanos partner.

Translumina LumiPBX mit Collanos Phone und Collanos Workplace bei beteo

Die Consulting Firma beteo AG ist eine innovative, junge Firma, die seit ihrer Gründung eine outgesourcete LumiPBX Telefonanlage von Translumina Networks verwendet. beteo verfügt über einmalige Expertise im Bereich SAP Application Lifecycle Management. Sie berät weltweit grosse Unternehmen, welche die Standardsoftware von SAP einsetzen. Es geht dabei darum, wie diese ihre SAP Systeme aufsetzen und gestalten, damit laufend vorzunehmende Anpassungen am Kunden-SAP-System die Flexiblität von Unternehmen und Informatiksystem kurz- wie langfristig möglichst nicht beeinträchtigen.

Alle Mitarbeitenden von beteo benutzen Collanos Phone, ein Telefon, das als Software auf dem Computer installiert ist. Dieser Soft-Client ist vollumfänglich sowohl in die bei beteo intensiv eingesetzte Collanos-Teamwork-Netzwerk wie auch in LumitPBX integriert. Telefonieren zwischen Collanos-Nutzern ist dadurch für beteo überall auf der Welt kostenlos. Die einzige Voraussetzung für das Funktionieren der Telefone im Collanos-Netzwerk ist der Zugriff des Computers aufs Internet. Damit ist der Mitarbeitende überall auf der Welt unter seiner eigenen Telefonnummer oder seinem Collanos-Namen per Telefon erreichbar.
Bei einem Anruf von Collanos Phone oder Collanos Workplace ins öffentliche Telefonnetz wird der Anruf kostengünstig über die zentrale LumiPBX abgewickelt.
Da sich Collanos Phone in seinen Funktionen nicht von einem normalen Telefon unterscheidet und für die Projektteams von beteo eine flexible und vernetzte Arbeitsweise unerlässlich ist, hat sich Dieter Steiger, Gründer und CEO von beteo, für diese Lösung entschieden. Somit fiel der Kauf von Telefonapparaten für beteo weg und die Mitarbeitenden, die permanent bei Kunden in ganz Europa unterwegs sind, geniessen grösste Flexibiliät.

Gemäss Dieter Steiger, dessen stark wachsendes Unternehmen bereits über 20 Mitarbeitende in Deutschland und der Schweiz beschäftigt, eignet sich LumiPBX ganz speziell für mittelgrosse und kleinere Unternehmen. Bei einer Grösse von 10-500 Mitarbeitenden erachtet Dieter Steiger das System für absolut überschaubar und einfach zu handhaben. LumiPBX hält er für sinnvoll, sobald ein Unternehmen eine einfache Telefonzentrale benötigt, die Mitarbeitenden über die Firmennummer erreichbar sein und Telefonbeantworterfunktionen oder Voice-Mail genutzt werden sollen.

Mit ein bisschen Erfahrung sei die Einbindung neuer Mitarbeitenden ins System einfach, meint Dieter Steiger. Deshalb nehmen die beteo-Mitarbeitenden bei einer Neuanstellung oder einem Mitarbeiterwechsel die Einbindung der Personen ins System gleich selber vor. Im Gegensatz zu früher, als die interne Telefonie noch von einer komplexen Zentrale aus gesteuert wurde, sei man nun nicht mehr auf einen externen Fachmann angewiesen. Dadurch gewinne das Unternehmen an Autonomie und Flexibilität, lobt Dieter Steiger.

Einen Home-Office-Anschluss benötigen Dieter Steiger und beteo-Mitarbeitende nicht, da sie mittels Collanos Phone oder eines IP-Telefons alle benötigten Funktionen überall, also auch zuhause, bequem nutzen können.
„Dank dem in LumiPBX integrierten Collanos Phone benutzen wir international kaum mehr Mobiltelefone und sparen dadurch so viele Kosten, dass selbst Privatgespräche überhaupt nicht ins Gewicht fallen“, erklärt er. „Machen sich die beteo-Mitarbeitenden das Nutzen der neuen Plattform geschäftlich und privat zu Gewohnheit, können wir als Firma unter dem Strich nur gewinnen.“

LumiPBX deckt insgesamt viel mehr Funktionen ab, als beteo braucht.
Die Möglichkeit, Gespräche automatisch weiterzuleiten nutzt beteo nur im Fall von Anrufen zur Zentrale, welche zur Administration weitergeleitet werden. Eingehende Gespräche werden aus Kostengründen nicht automatisch an Mobiltelefone weitergeleitet. Gerne genutzt wird hingegen das Weiterleiten von Voice-Mails auf die Emails der Mitarbeitenden.

LumiPBX und Collanos Phone bringen nicht nur den Vorteil, das öffentliche Telefonnetz weltweit zu sehr günstigen Tarifen zu nutzen, sondern ermöglichen auch die einfache Integration der Telefonie ins Collanos Collaboration Netzwerk von beteo. So wird diese ausgezeichnete Möglichkeit zur Zusammenarbeit mit unseren Projektpartnern und Kunden nun kostenlos um Sprach-Services ergänzt. „Diese günstige call-out-Funktion für unsere Teamworkumgebung haben wir uns immer gewünscht und nun endlich bekommen. Das ist wirklich hervorragend!“, freut sich Dieter Steiger.

Über die Autorin:
Claudia Poggiolini arbeitet als freischaffende Publizistin im Bereich Unternehmskommunikation von Translumina Networks.

Swiss startup nominated for prestigious international award

Collanos Software, the developer of Collanos Workplace that allows teams to collaborate electronically over the Internet, was nominated as a finalist for Red Herring 100 Global Award. In April of last year, Collanos Software was selected as a 2008 Red Herring 100 Europe winner. With five other Swiss startups besides Collanos being nominated for the award, Switzerland can truly be considered a prime location for innovative, up-and-coming companies.

In professional circles, the awards given out by Red Herring, an international media company, are considered the ultimate prize for innovative technology and are thus highly coveted. Red Herring 100 winners and finalists from North America, Europe, and Asia of the last three years are eligible for the prestigious “Global” award. Using an elaborate process and drawing from a pool of eligible, promising companies, Red Herring’s editors select 200 finalists for this award. Their assessments are based on quantitative as well as qualitative criteria, including financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy, and environmental integration. The finalists, elite executives, and venture capital decision makers will meet in San Diego, California from January 14-16, 2009 for the presentation of the Global 100 awards.

Red Herring nominated five other Swiss startups besides Collanos. These six nominations put Switzerland in 9th place – an outstanding ranking – on the Red Herring list for the Global 100, after the U.S., China, U.K., India, France, Germany, Finland and Canada.

Exceptionally pleased to have his company on the list of finalists, Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software, said, “For us and five other emerging companies to represent our country and Europe in San Diego makes me very proud of Collanos and Switzerland as a technology location. Collanos’ nomination highlights our innovative strength and confirms course we have taken using our special, highly attractive freemium business model.”

In December 2008, Collanos launched the latest version of Collanos Workplace 1.4 as a comprehensive unified collaboration solution. Existing teamwork support services are now supplemented with new voice, video, and project management functions. The company also announced that it had registered its 22,000th active Collanos user.

For additional information about the Red Herring 100 Global, please go to: http://www.herringevents.com/global08/index.html

Schweizer Start-up für prestigeträchtige weltweite Auszeichnung nominiert

Collanos Software, Anbieterin von Collanos Workplace für die elektronische Zusammenarbeit von Teams im Internet, wurde als Finalist der Red Herring 100 Global Awards nominiert. Collanos Software gewann im April 2008 bereits den Red Herring 100 Europa 2008 Award. Neben Collanos sind fünf weitere Schweizer Start-ups nominiert, was den Standortvorteil der Schweiz für innovative aufstrebende Unternehmen unterstreicht.

Die Awards des weltweit tätigen Medien-Unternehmens Red Herring gelten in Fachkreisen als Ritterschlag in der Innovationstechnologie und sind entsprechend prestigeträchtig. Red Herring 100 Nordamerika, Europa und Asien Gewinner sowie Finalisten der letzten drei Jahre sind für diese begehrte Auszeichnung wählbar. Red Herring Redaktoren wählen anhand eines ausgeklügelten Prozesses aus diesem Pool der förderungswürdigen, vielversprechenden Unternehmen die 200 Finalisten für die globale Auszeichnung. Die Bewertungen werden sowohl anhand quantitativer als auch qualitativer Kriterien abgegeben. Dazu gehören unter anderem finanzielle Leistungsfähigkeit, Innovation, Management, globale Strategie und Integration ins Ökosystem. Die Finalisten, Elite-Führungskräfte und Venture-Capital-Leader treffen sich vom 14. bis 16. Januar 2009 in San Diego (USA) für die Verleihung der Global 100 Auszeichnungen.

Neben Collanos sind fünf weitere Start-ups aus der Schweiz nominiert. Mit diesen sechs Nominationen liegt die Schweiz in der Red Herring Liste für die Global 100 nach USA, China, Grossbritannien, Indien, Frankreich, Deutschland, Finnland und Kanada auf dem hervorragenden 9. Platz.

Peter Helfenstein, CEO von Collanos Software, freut sich: „Zusammen mit Vertretern von fünf weiteren aufstrebenden Unternehmen unser Land und Europa in San Diego vertreten zu dürfen, erfüllt mich für Collanos und den Technologiestandort Schweiz ganz allgemein mit Stolz. Die Nomination von Collanos unterstreicht unsere Innovationskraft und bestätigt den eingeschlagenen Weg mit unserem speziellen, attraktiven Freemium-Geschäftsmodell.“

Collanos lancierte im Dezember 2008 die neuste Version von Collanos Workplace 1.4 als umfassende Unified Collaboration Lösung. Gängige Dienste zur Unterstützung der Teamarbeit werden neu durch Voice- und Video- sowie Projektmanagementfunktionen abgerundet. Gleichzeitig konnte der 22’000. aktive registrierte Collanos-Benutzer vermeldet werden.

Weitere Informationen zu Red Herring 100 Global unter http://www.herringevents.com/global08/index.html.