Definition

Concrete project in which a virtual team made up of members from different areas works together on an enterprise-wide basis.

A folder hierarchy and its related objects, for example, documents, help to structure and visualize a complex project transparently.

Use

You can create a collaboration in the collaborative scenarios or the competitive scenarios.

You can use a template to create a collaboration. You can also define that a collaboration you define can later be used as a template.

Depending on whether a team project (that is, a collaboration) is to be carried out in a purely collaborative or in a competitive environment, the project leader (that is, the collaboration owner), creates his or her collaboration as a collaborative scenario or as a competitive scenario . (In a standard scenario , the owner can create collaborations for storing folder objects that are used in multiple collaborations.) Accordingly, the potential collaboration participants, depending on whether they are internal team members or bidders competing with one another and who create their bids in cFolders, work either on collaborations in the collaborative scenario and in the public area of the competitive scenario, or in (Partner) private work areas of the competitive scenario. Private work areas, which are intended for competitive scenarios, cannot be created in collaborative scenarios. Collaboration in collaborative scenarios only takes place in the public work area.

For each collaboration, you can specify which objects types and which object categories can be created.

Structure

A collaboration is composed of a public area (and in a competitive scenario, also of diverse private work areas), and typically a hierarchy of folders and subfolders in which the different objects required for the collaboration are clearly structured. The following folder objects can be created in a collaboration:

These represent the objects that the various collaboration participants work on and with in a collaboration.

You can specify that a collaboration is to be used as a template or you can create a collaboration using a template. When you create a collaboration using a template, the system copies all objects and authorizations except engineering change numbers (ECNs).