Within the collaborative environment, users may view and collaborate with other online users within their home campus or users who have access to their home campus . Presences awareness features in the Online Users component allow users view and access collaboration features for other users in the same collaborative environment. An associates list may be set including users most often collaborated with to allow certain users to have different preferences. Users are also able to search for other users by skill.
Online Users Component
The Online Users component provides presence awareness features useful for determining where other users are located within the collaborative environment. The component displays each user that is logged into the environment as well as the room the user is currently in. User information is displayed in a table containing the user's name, home campus, and the campus, building, floor, and room where the user is located. The comment column displays a message indicating the user's idle status or personalized idle message. Additional features of the Online Users component include easy access to information about other users, joining another user, entering sidebar chats, or paging. Local users are also able to view any remote user who is logged into the home campus.
Details provided by the Online Users component include:
User—The name of a specific user.
Home—The home campus of the user, regardless of the user's location.
Organization—The organization the user belongs to.
Idle—The current status of the user, which can be active or idle, and the time and the comment the user entered when they went idle.
Campus—The specific campus, whether home or remote, where the user is located within the collaborative environment.
Building—The specific building a user is in within the collaborative environment.
Floor—The specific floor a user is in within the collaborative environment.
Room—The specific room a user is in within the collaborative environment.
To access the Online Users component:
Click the Online Users icon on the toolbar.
The Online Users window will appear.
Figure 3-1 Online Users
To sort the online users list:
Select a column header. The list of users will be sorted in ascending order according to the selected column.
To sort the list in descending order, select the same column header again.
To sort by another column, simply select the appropriate column header.
To filter the online users list:
Select a column name from the filter type pull-down menu next to the contains field.
Enter your filter text in the contains text field. Only the entries that match the filter will be displayed.
Associates
While in the collaborative environment, users may view and come in contact with many other users. To aid in more efficient collaboration, users may set an associates list to include users who frequently collaborate with them, including users in accessible remote campuses. The Associates component allows users to view detailed presence awareness information about those associates. Additional icons are displayed beside each user indicating if the user is logged on, idle, in the room, or viewing the whiteboard.
Figure 3-2 Associates
To set or update the associates list:
Click the Associates icon on the toolbar. The Associates window will appear with associates icons displayed.
Right-click to access the context menu.
Select Update Associates. The Update Associates window will appear.
Search for a user by typing the name in the Contains field of the Available Users section.
Select the user or users to add to the associates list and click the right arrow button. The users in the Selected Users section will be added to the associates list. Remove users from the associates list by selecting from the Selected Users section and clicking the left arrow.
Note:
Accessible remote campuses will be displayed in the campus drop down list of the Available Users/Groups section. Select the appropriate campus to select users or groups from each campus and continue until all desired users or groups are displayed in the Selected Users/Groups list.
Click OK to set the associates list.
Note:
Additional features of the Associates component are accessing contact information on associates, initiating a sidebar conversation. Right-click in the component to access these features.
Figure 3-3 User/Group Chooser
Skill Search
CollabraSuite, BEA Edition skill mapping capabilities allow users to be mapped to a customized set of skills. The list of available skills is customizable at the campus level. Once skills are assigned to users, others can search for available personnel with a particular skill set. By enabling users to find others based on skill, this feature facilitates both knowledge sharing and problem solving.
To access the Skill Search window:
Select the Skill Search icon from the toolbar.
The Skill Search window will display.
Figure 3-4 Skill Search
To search for users with a particular skill set:
In the Skill Search window, highlight the desired skills in the All Skills List.
Click the right arrow to move the highlighted skills to the Selected Skills list.
Select the Online Users Only checkbox if the search should be limited to users that are currently online.
Select the And radio button to search for users that have all of the skills selected, or select the Or radio button for users that have one or more of the skills listed in the Selected Skills result set.
Click Search to begin the search. The search results table will display all of the users that match your criteria.
Click Clear to remove the list of search results
Note:
See the Online Users topic for actions that can be performed on users listed in the search results table.
on the toolbar. The Associates window will appear with associates icons displayed.
