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Instant Technologies Team Sessions runs on top of IBM Lotus Instant Messaging, which runs on top of Lotus Domino. Therefore, user administration of the application is handled largely in the Domino sphere.
Click here to read the full review of Team Sessions 1.0.
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Instant Technologies Team Sessions runs on top of IBM Lotus Instant Messaging, which runs on top of Lotus Domino. Therefore, user administration of the application is handled largely in the Domino sphere.
Team Sessions builds on the IBM Lotus Instant Messaging core to create persistent chat rooms, called Places, and gives users the ability to organize those Places in the context of the capabilities of IBM Lotus Instant Messaging.
However, users logged on to Team Sessions can simultaneously run IBMs IM client, Lotus Sametime Client.
Users can still access their buddy lists from within Team Sessions and launch private chat sessions; the buddy list just appears in a dedicated frame. Private chats dont occur in the tabbed Team Sessions interface. Instead, they appear in floating windows.
Given the proper rights, users can create Team Sessions Places and manage access and set passwords for Places. Place creators can also change a limited set of Place options, such as the ability to see buddy lists and manage text archive settings. During tests, we could also set text-color preferences to distinguish, for example, event text from archived text.
We found it easy to create filters to monitor Places for certain words or events. Users can also share files and links. The integrated search engine can perform full text searches on archives and files.
We liked that administrators can block users ability to share files and links by assigning a moderator to a Place, with the moderator then becoming the only user with the ability to perform those actions.
In general, roles are handled much differently in Team Sessions than they are in MindAlign, since Domino provides all the role-based management. Essentially, there are three basic roles: an administrator, a user with the ability to create and manage Places, and users.
As a Java-based application, Team Sessions should be able to run on any browser or platform, but it currently supports only Microsofts Internet Explorer on Windows-based systems.
Technical Analyst Michael Caton can be reached at michael_caton@ziffdavis.com.