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  • Date: Thursday, July 31, 2008 Time: 2:10 pm Category: Email, Groupwise, News Tagged book review, Groupwise, users Discussion: 2 Comments

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For many people at WVU, GroupWise is just the name of the email program that they have to use — sometimes grudgingly. The true strength behind GroupWise is that it is actually something called an “integrated collaborative environment,” which includes not only email but also calendaring, instant messaging and document management. It is software designed to help people involved in a common task — like running a large university — achieve their goals.

In my role of providing advanced end-user support for GroupWise, I had stumbled across a Novell site called GroupWise® Cool Solutions™, where “users, administrators and developers share their secrets.” One of the links off of this page is a reference to a book titled The GroupWise Powerguide.

The book aims toward providing a resource for help desk professionals and IT managers working in a GroupWise environment. Perhaps the best description of this book comes from part of its preface:

This book is a collection of tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of GroupWise. This book is not a complete end-user manual, but it is aimed at those who already have some basic knowledge of GroupWise and who want to take the next step. We have tried to collect as many tips as possible and we have made each tip to be a standalone item. This means that you should be able to use each tip as a separate item. We then placed all of the tips into different categories, so you will find a series of tips on the same type of functionality in one chapter.

I have been using GroupWise for a couple of years, and my initial impressions of it have admittedly not been favorable. In hindsight, much of this attitude was the result of ignorance. There is an incredible about of functionality built into GroupWise, but that functionality is not always readily apparent. The GroupWise Powerguide goes a long ways towards not only introducing you to a wealth of features, but also in how to make the best use of those features.

Here is a list of the major chapter titles:

• A quick sight seeing tour through your GroupWise environment
• Rediscovering the client’s view
• A closer look at your email options
• Sign your messages to identify yourself
• How folders can make your life much easier
• Organize your life with calendars, tasks and notes
• Managing your mailbox size & archiving
• Proxy — get access to more…
• Address Books — keeping in touch
• Rules: make GroupWise do the work for you

I can enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who is interested in getting the most out of GroupWise.