ProjectSpaces

Developed by Forum One Communications, this online tool is designed to help people around the world to collaborate across organisational and geographical boundaries. The password-protected, web-based extranet system includes features that are tailored to support the needs of virtual teams, with an interface that Forum One describes as "simple and intuitive to help your users find what they're looking for quickly and easily." Users of ProjectSpaces may:

• Store and access documents in virtual folders with a document library that allows filtering documents by type (Word, Excel, PPT, etc.)
• Assign, track, and manage tasks with a task management tool and automated e-mail reminders
• Post project news and announcements in a project blog
• Create and manage online discussions
• Create shared e-mail lists and archive e-mail messages, with the capacity to search emails across topics, documents, events, and tasks
• Manage multiple projects
• Create new ProjectSpaces, in part through a module that allows administrators to add, edit, and remove topics

Available anytime to anyone with an internet connection (who has paid for the ProjectSpaces service), these features are designed to enhance communication by making it easy for members of dispersed project teams to interact in between face-to-face meetings, workshops, and conferences. It is designed to allow partners and clients to contribute directly to the project dialogue and access project materials. Forum One also claims that the tool can improve project effectiveness by reducing the time required to communicate, execute, file, and retrieve - and by providing a shared record of the entire work process in a continually growing archive of project documents, tasks, events, best practices, reports, email discussions, and the like.