Tools and More Requirements

We have a number of teams trying out the tools, some quite seriously others just poking them with sticks… Here are some of the other things we needed to think about…

Who else uses it – Are they “like us”

• SocialText: Citizen’s Advice Bureau. Boston College (ahem)
• Jive: Intel, Nike, VMWare, SAP are all people we’ve heard of.
• LifeRay: French MoD, Penn State University, York University in the States - York Case Study.pdf , Sesame Street isn’t too bad.
• Elgg: Leeds University, University of Sussex

Cost – If it is a per-user model then what would be the cost “if” half our students sneaked in

• SocialText: Approximately £30,000 a year (for 3,000 users)
• Jive: Roughly £40,000 a year
• LifeRay: Free (open source)
• Elgg: Free (open source)
• Confluence: £1,200

Extensibility options – Can we develop new modules – How far can we get with templates? How hard is creating portlets? How easy/dangerous is hacking PHP?

• SocialText: Gadgets. Restful API. Has template documents. SocialText seems to be PERL ( they’ve kept that quiet! )
• Jive: It looks like the development opportunities for Jive are better than I’d first thought. You can create and deploy plugins as JAR files. There is both a SOAP and RESTful API.
• LifeRay: The model here is that you develop portlets. There is a full API (even for JavaScript jQuery API access).
• Elgg: You create plugins for Elgg or adapt the source code.

Development options – Does the platform support our technologies / abilities?

We currently are more than happy with a TomCat/ Oracle or LAMP platforms. I am familiar with python.

• SocialText: Perl based. Actually open-source, although licensing is a moot issue.
• Jive: Java-based.
• LifeRay: Java-based.
• Elgg: PHP.
• Confluence: Java development.

Community and Documentation – Is it up to date, helpful, copius and easy to use.

• SocialText: There actually seems little in the way of developer relations, meaning this would ultimately be a client / vendor relationship. It then becomes important that the company have a transparent development process and are open to recommendations. I already have a growing list of usability issues/suggestions that I feel are important enough to raise before purchase.
• Jive: The Jive Developer Community use Jive and as such it seems well serviced. I received a reponse to a complaint from a Jive staff member in days.
• LifeRay: Being open source they LifeRay community seems to be vibrant, current and helpful.
• Elgg: Although the community seems willing and able, the discussion forums seem difficult to use, with each person seemingly forced to create a group for their particular question. This doesn’t bode well.

Deployment – Does this fit what we have?

Are there any issues?

• SocialText: Hosted or appliance.
• Jive: Hosted or software. “Not resiliant but reliable“
• LifeRay: Self-hosted TomCat portal.
• Elgg: Hosted or self hosted LAMP stack.

User Interface – Is it nice to use?

• SocialText: Missing a few Web2.0 niceties such as inline validation etc.
• Jive: Exemplary.
• LifeRay: Has a few styling rough edges but handles adding tags etc very well.
• Elgg: Competent and clean, but at time clunky.

Reports and Feedback – do people like it?

Elgg: Rachel from Leeds…

My personal perspective – I don’t like it much. I found it clunky and difficult to customise. I doesn’t display properly in different browsers (this may now have been resolved). I find it difficult to navigate. The best thing I can say is the file store was useful – also the ability to set different levels of access to files. But again, this process was clunky. As you may gather, I’m not really a fan.

LifeRay: InfoWorld has named Liferay Portal the “Best Open Source Portal” on the market.

Jive: Sheffield and their users really like it.

SocialText: Unknown.

Confluence: Lots of positive feedback, particularly from the development community (and Julie in Digital Library).

Integratability – From systems we have (calendar, email, LDAP, XMPP) to those we might have soon(Files/Sharepoint/Alfresco, VLE stuff, HR widgets? Portal etc)

This is one of the most amorphous and yet important factors, in that, we are looking not to duplicate work already underway in different departments. For example, the VLE is soon to be “socialised”, the portal project looks to unify some sort of dashboard mix of information and we have existing enterprise tools like email and Sun Calendar in place and potential tools lurking on the horizon, such as Sharepoint or Alfresco file sharing.

Any system that integrates well with LDAP, and that can be easily gadgetized will be at an advantage. Shibboleth also lurks.

• SocialText: LDAP.
• Jive: LDAP yes.
• LifeRay: LDAP yes. XMPP (I think so)
• Elgg: LDAP plugin currently alpha and untested.
• Confluence: LDAP. XMPP (unsure, plugin available for JIRA)

Change management – can we import from existing tools like MediaWiki / Drupal etc to provide a migration route for existing platforms?

• SocialText: Don’t believe so.
• Jive: Don’t believe so.
• LifeRay: It looks like this is possible in theory. May need some development.
• Elgg: Don’t believe so.
• Confluence: Yes.

Can group admins invite external people easily? This is kind of crucial…

• SocialText: Yes
• Jive: Yes.
• LifeRay: Unknown.
• Elgg: Yes.

Is the privacy and permissions model well communicated? This one “scares the horses” most… not when it’s bad, but when it’s not clear.

• SocialText: Could be improved. Need to ask further questions, for example, in the SocialText admin screen below what does “public” mean, is there a mode that means “logged in users”? Not completely clear… AND … The workspaces themselves do a poor job of communicating their Permission settings.
• Jive: Good.
• LifeRay: Adequate.
• Elgg: Slightly poor. Could be improved with minimal development.
• Confluence: Unknown.

Given the widespread adoption of Google tools, how well does it play with those?

• SocialText: There are gadgets for Gmail and Gcalendar.
• Jive: Doesn’t seem to support gadgets at all.
• LifeRay: Supports Google Gadgets.
• Elgg: Kind of.
• Confluence: Unknown.

Events Calendaring – almost everyone playing (seriously) with SocialText has created an “Events wiki page”… this should be noted.

• SocialText: Poor events handling. Seem to be missing completely instead adopting an “everything is a wiki page” stance.
• Jive: Doesn’t seem to support events, although a task oriented calendar is available within a Project.
• LifeRay: Social office has a pleasant calendar/events tool built in.
• Elgg: Groups have events.
• Confluence: Unknown.

Branding options for individual groups

In my travels, lots of people have expressed a keen interest in how things will look.

• SocialText: Little to none. You can add images to the “Home” page for a project.
• Jive: Little to none
• LifeRay: Unknown. It is possible to fully brand an install. Not sure about group level
• Elgg: Unknown. It is possible to fully brand an install. Not sure about group level
• Confluence: Looks totally skinnable, even for individual spaces

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