Collaboration in Virtual Rooms

You implement this scenario variant so that portal users can organize their team work, project work, or company-wide collaboration in rooms. A room is a configurable virtual working environment in the portal.

Virtual rooms are created based on templates, which are predefined for the respective purpose and can be changed as required. If users require a virtual room, either an employee with the appropriate permissions (power user) or a system administrator can create it for them. Access to the information in the room is controlled by means of user-specific access permissions, the room roles.

Collaboration in a virtual room provides room members with the following options:

Using the virtual working environment across time zones and geographical locations
Access through the room - as a central entry point - to different applications, information, and services that are necessary for handling business processes
Shared use of all information that is relevant in the context of the business process
Online communication between room members in real time or asynchronously
Planning of team work and project work on the basis of a shared calendar

Architecture of the Scenario Variant

Prerequisites

The complete basic configuration of the Enabling User Collaboration scenario has been completed according to the instructions in SAP Solution Manager or in the SAP NetWeaver configuration guide.

Required Usage Types of SAP NetWeaver

To implement this scenario variant, you require the following technical SAP NetWeaver usage types:

Enterprise Portal (EP)
Business Intelligence (BI)(see also the Enterprise Reporting, Query and Analysis scenario)

IT Processes of the Scenario Variant

The IT processes below are examples of the scenario variant capabilities.

IT Process	Description
Creating templates	This IT process describes how a user creates a room template or room part template as a copy of a SAP standard template.
Creating rooms	This IT process describes how a user (team lead and room owner) creates a room based on a template and invites the required members to it.
Preparing shared use of documents	This IT process describes how the room owner plans the document structure and defines the permissions for the folders for the room as well as how the members create and use documents.
Collaborating with team members	This IT process describes how the members of a project team organize their collaboration in a virtual room.
Maintaining room life cycles	This IT process describes how each room can be managed, monitored, and controlled during its life cycle.

In practice, the IT processes are closely linked to one another. The room lifecycle begins with creation of the room and ends with its deletion. Users can start working with documents even before the room has been created, because the documents required in the room are made available in the Content Management repository.

Benefits of the Scenario Variant

The scenario variant supports employees' work in your company by making available the following benefits:

Optimum collaboration through use of standardized room templates valid across the company
Fast implementation of knowledge and communication in business decisions
Bringing together of knowledge that is spread between individual employees
Usage of expert knowledge from other project rooms and previous project rooms