Quovix Inc. is making the engine that powers its network of contract software developers available as stand-alone software for building collaborative communities.
CommunityBuilder, which will be rolled out this week, enables companies to build online communities and manage projects that community members are working on.
Members may include employees within a single company, customers, contractors, advisers, free-lancers or others who need to coalesce into teams for discrete projects.
A typical early deployment of CommunityBuilder involved enabling pharmaceuticals scientists to share information on building organic compounds.
CommunityBuilder grew out of Indianapolis-based Quovixs Web-based network, which acts as a moderator between companies looking for custom application development and 390 free-lance software developers.
Using CommunityBuilder, Quovix posts the specifications for each job and provides a forum where developers can take part in threaded discussions on the projects before ultimately bidding on them.
CommunityBuilder manages the process and ranks developers by the amount of input they give in online discussions. Those who provide more input and who complete projects on time get more points that give more weight to their bids on future contracts, said Quovix CEO Martin Marrow.
The software enables community members to upload documents and other electronic files to a shared Web site and attach them to the projects for review by other team members. It also features e-mail notifications, personal home pages and project archiving.
Administrators get a dashboard to track changes in the community.
Foresight International Inc., of Lake Zurich, Ill., has used the Quovix developer network to bid out several software projects, including development of software for convention planning and lead retrieval.
Operations Manager Tami Martin has been most impressed with CommunityBuilders Virtual Projects Room feature, which enables those working on a project to share files and engage in threaded discussions in a secure environment.
“It cant get any easier,” Martin said.