What happens after you’ve rolled out your groupware system to the whole company? Now your job is to keep operations smooth. The key is regular maintenance and attention.
Do: Develop and follow a regular maintenance schedule. This is something that your consultant or the manufacturer can suggest. Most groupware systems allow you to automate maintenance routines and will also allow you to schedule the routines during off-peak hours to avoid user impact. Regular scheduled maintenance is the key to a reliable system.
Don’t: Don’t expect unskilled or unfocused IS staff to administer and support a groupware system. This is especially true in a large environment. Many times companies who have several hundred, or even thousands of users, expect one administrator to run the network infrastructure, the servers, the groupware system, and several other systems and applications. Groupware systems are complex and deserve focused attention. If your organization cannot afford a dedicated administrator, at least make sure the administrator has received whatever training is available and make sure you have a good relationship with a highly skilled consultant. You can also distribute the administration duties among several people to ease the load on a single person. Your groupware system will become mission critical to your organization. An administrator who knows a lot about one thing is sometimes more valuable than one who knows a little about many things.
