Office Automation and Group Collaboration Software

Office Automation and Group Collaboration Software

Learning Team "B"

By: Stephanie M. Ferguson

Date: 07/21/2012

University of Phoenix/CIS:319

Instructor: Dr. Roger Aylstock

Office Automation and Group Collaboration Software

Many companies use office automation and some type of group collaboration software as part of the everyday use of the workplace, especially larger corporations. Corporations expand their companies often and with that, any group collaboration software becomes a necessity. Office automation is "the use of computer systems to execute a variety of office operations, such as word processing, accounting, and e-mail. Office automation almost always implies a network of computers with a variety of available programs" (Webopedia, 2006). Hardware, software, and network applications used to enhance office work are all included in office automation. The company I work for uses office automation for databases, spreadsheets, desktop publisher, email, presentations, and word processing. We also use it for internet explorer and financial systems. Collaboration software or groupware, as it is sometimes called, is defined as "computer-based systems that support groups of people engaged in a common task or goal and that provide an interface to a shared environment" (Wikipedia, 2006). This type of software allows the teams of my company to work on the same problems. They can share ideas and work through computers that are connected. Both automation and group collaboration are used throughout my company and have advantages and disadvantages.

My company uses office automation for many reasons as shown above. They will purchase a new software program, but they have it developed specifically for the use of the company only. But there are many departments in this company and they all have different software for different uses. My department is the mortgage department so the software we use will be different from the next department which may be auto finance. They only upgrade the software when the current software is not working properly. We recently had a new software program installed because the one previously used was really slow and it seemed that everyday there was a new problem. There are two options when it comes to purchasing office automation. One is to buy if off the shelf, pre packaged or customize it. The advantages of buying it off the shelf would be lower costs and quicker delivery times. The disadvantage of buying it off the shelf is that it want be customized to the needs of the company. The advantage of customization is that it will be specifically