Instan-t Collaboration Suite

Instan-t Premium Collaborative Edition is a messaging and collaboration suite that provides instant messaging, voice and video chat, online presentation and computer sharing capabilities within an enterprise

Sunday, February 04, 2007

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An instant messaging software with collaboration capabilities. Other than regular instant messaging functions it has features such as video conferencing, voice chat, online presentations and computer sharing. For basic instant messaging, it has features such as multi-person conferencing, offline messages, file transfer, invisible modes, etc. It also provides support for voice and video chat and can be used with Active Directory for User Directory Integration. It also provides optional interoperability with third party messengers like MSN, ICQ, Yahoo and AOL.

However, Administrators can specify whether a user can communicate with third party messengers or not. The software has two parts-IM Server and Client. At server side, it comes with a web administration interface through which you can perform all administrative tasks, create users and assign them permissions, message users etc. Also the database of all users can be backed up in a .csv file. IM Server can be installed on Windows 2003 or 2000 Server and requires Internet Information Services (IIS) and Message Queuing Services (MSMQ) to be installed.

The product uses Diffie-Hellman session encryption keys to provide secure communication. However, if the client is used with a third party messenger like Yahoo, no encryption is supported. It also provides message archiving at both client as well as server end.

At server side, administrators can choose to keep a message archive of all conversations and activities that have taken place amongst users, and later on search them by dates as well as users. Another interesting feature in this software is Web communication, where a user who doesn't have access to Instan-t client can message you through users Web URL, and if the user is online they get it instantly.

It also has an e-mail signature tool through which you can add an email signature with your online status for Outlook and Outlook Express.

In administrative console, view details such as online users, registered users, and users in voice & video chat

Install & configure
Once installed, configuring IM server is simple. Launch IM Server Admin console from start-up menu. Inside the console you can customize various IM settings such as user registration, server messages, etc. Under user registration, you can specify whether a user can create and use the account immediately or should it first go to the Administrator for approval.

You can also disable account creation at users end and create all accounts manually from this console. Here also specify whether a user should have interoperability with third party messengers like MSN, Yahoo, and ICQ or not. Similarly, you can assign whether the user has permission to access voice chat or video chat, or is allowed to share computers and make a presentation.

You can also specify if message archiving should be enabled for a particular user or not. If message archiving is enabled, you can view all conversations performed by a user in the Message Archiving option under Users menu. Here, provide the username and period of time for which you want to view conversations and click search. It will show you a record of all activities and conversations of a user between periods of time specified by you. To view stats of IM activities, go to stats option on the web console. Here you can see general stats like total registered and online users, services used by users user's per age, gender, etc. Similarly, you can also see monthly usage stats through graphs in monthly stats option.

A computer being shared between two users over a network using Instan-t Premium Messenger

Client installation & usage
You need to manually install the client Instan-t messenger at users end. It doesn't come with any automated client installation option available. To install the client, open Client folder from the Start-up menu. Here, you will see two files, ITSetup.exe and ClientSettings.ini. Every time the IM Client installer is executed, it checks for settings in the file ClientSettings.ini. If this file exists, the installer reads the information in it and uses it to configure the client that is being installed, else the client is installed with default settings which need to be changed later on.

Once the client has been installed at user end, it sits in the system tray. Users can just login and start working with it. Using client is pretty simple, just like any other messenger. To start a presentation with two or more users, right click on a user on your list and click on 'Make a presentation.' It will open a small online presentation window and send that user an invitation to join the presentation. You can also invite off-line users to a presentation by clicking on 'Invite by e-mail' button.

Once the users have accepted your invitation, they will be able to see everything you do on your screen. Similarly, you can share your computer with any other online user on Instan-t messenger.

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