We now have a "magic mailbox" feature for PeopleMatrix which allows you to CC a specific email address on an email message and have the content of that message automatically added to any relevant contact records you have.  All without ever logging in to PeopleMatrix.  Let's say you're sending a notice to a client or emailing a potential job candidate and don't have time to log in to PeopleMatrix and make a note.  Just CC PeopleMatrix on your message ... and voila!!  It's magic.

MailChimp Integration

Many of our customers use MailChimp for email campaign management.  It's a nice tool for that.  We now have a feature that will synchronize any of the contact groups you designate in PeopleMatrix with your MailChimp lists.  

Click here to visit the PeopleMatrix website.  Explore features in detail and sign up for a FREE 30-day trial.

Google Apps and Google Sites

Google Apps is a comprehensive suite of enterprise collaboration technologies.  Google Sites, a key component of Google Apps, provides a platform for building both intranet-style sites with documents, lists, and widgets, and more team-oriented collaboration workspaces.  Google Apps is rapidly stealing market share from both Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint and has nurtured an ecosystem of 3rd-party applications and services that integrate seamlessly with it.  With the third-party OffiSync add-in, it is possible for users to have the same level of seamless integration with the Microsoft Office desktop application suite as they would enjoy with SharePoint, at a significantly lower cost.

Key Advantages

Best Experience for Field Users (Google Content Delivery Network)

Google Apps / Sites provides a more bandwidth-optimized experience for field users than SharePoint.  This is a major consideration for organizations that have international field office users with unreliable bandwidth and/or latency issues that cause frustration and slow work processes.  Given the fact that there is relative feature parity between the two systems, performance in low-bandwidth environments becomes a big differentiator between these two solutions. 

The difference in performance is based on two factors.  First, the Google web-based interfaces use few graphics compared to the SharePoint implementations.  Second, the Google Content Delivery Network provides a massively distributed global hosting infrastructure that physically moves data closer to specific users based on where they are consuming it. 

Support for Both Top-Down (Managed) and Bottom-Up (Viral) Usage

A factor that makes Google Apps / Sites particularly attractive is that is supports both "top-down" and "bottom-up" usage scenarios.  Content managers and corporate IT planners want the control and careful content-versioning (think policies and templates) that come with carefully organized lists of resources whose organization is the responsibility of designated staff ("top-down).  Google Sites provides for this type of managed web site with widgets, lists, directories, and documents that are governed by designated users.  However, site creation can also be delegated to individual users for ad-hoc project workspaces and more team-style collaboration efforts ("bottom-up").  Similarly, Google Docs allows users to set their own rules for sharing specific documents that they upload into their storage space, apart from the permissions that may be placed on more "governed" document libraries that may be part of the more "official" intranet. 

We feel that this aspect of Google Apps directly encourages its adoption by distributed offices and/or projects.  It provides the ability to share information from a "home office" to field locations in a structured fashion, while also giving project or division-level teams some flexible tools to get their projects accomplished.  This aspect should be appealing not only to field-level users, but also to division managers who want tools that provide some relative autonomy and flexibility for implementing projects.  

Lightweight Web Interfaces and Full Integration with MS Office Apps

Google Apps provides both lightweight browser-based interfaces to all functionality as well as providing native support for MS Office Apps via Google Apps OffiSync.  Increasingly Google Apps' support for MS Office is becoming as seamless as that of SharePoint.

Lowest Cost of Licensing

Google Apps provides the lowest cost of licensing available for a platform that supports a SharePoint-equivalent feature set. 

Baked-in Support for Integrated Authentication

Google Apps includes Google's OpenAuth / OpenID services, which provides a mechanism for synchronizing Google Apps account data with other home-grown and 3rd-party hosted systems.  Google also offers a Google Apps Directory Sync tool which performs one-way synchronization of Active Directory account data into a Google Apps instance.

Integrated Authentication with MailChimp

Google Apps accounts can be used to authenticate users to a MailChimp account.  This is consequential for organizations who need a tool like MailChimp for email campaign management.

Large Non-technical User Community

Google Apps has a large community of non-technical users who actively champion new features and provide user-community support.

Feature Rundown

Document Storage, Sharing, Versioning, Tagging

Google Apps provides two storage mechanisms for this. Shared-document storage with version history within a pre-defined hierarchy and central control is available through the Cabinet feature of Google Sites. Peer-to-Peer document sharing within the organization is available through Google Docs. Documents stored in either store can be embedded in Sites pages and both types support simultaneous co-authoring. OffiSync provides tight integration for both stores directly within Office applications and also supports the co-editing feature. Optionally, the Google Apps administrator can enable users to collaborate on documents with any Google account holder such as proposal collaborators or University partners. Google Docs recently added tagging support. This is an area where features are being added rapidly.

Blogging and Microblogging

The Announcement page type in Google Sites is very blog-like and are automatically syndicated with RSS. Google Apps accounts can also be used in conjunction with Blogger. Alternatively, some blogging engines such as WordPress support OpenID authentication and could, therefore, use Google Apps accounts to authorize access. Any RSS feed can be incorporated in to Google Sites.

Status updates and Twitter feeds can be integrated into Google Sites either via custom HTML or 3^rd party Twitter widgets.

Custom Look / Feel

Google Sites provides a customizable interface within a pre-defined box model. Google provides an Enterprise Launch template specifically designed to facilitate this.

Views Based on User Permissions (i.e., different views depending on office location and user’s role in the organization)

Google Apps provides a hierarchical directory of permission delegation similar to Active Directory which allows modeling permissions based on organizational units. Permissions can be applied to Sites at different levels. For example, site authoring is separate from document attachment and commenting permission.

Links to Documents and URLs Relevant to Internal Work Processes 

Google Sites has this capability via custom HTML, the List content type as well as integration with “Cabinet” document repositories and Google Docs.

Local and Global Announcements

Google Apps provides a personalized home page via the optional “Start Page” component. There are different ways to configure Start Page but one option is to integrate it with Sites which provides administrative control to the theme and which gadgets Irexers are allowed to incorporate into their personal home page.

Event Calendars

Google Sites provides a Calendar widget which is driven by integration with Google Calendar.

CMS for Distributed Content Updating

The unit of authoring permission control is currently the Site container. Publishing control is managed by creating separate sites. Google has publically announced that it is working on page-level authoring permissions.

Ability to Track Usage

Google Sites provides integration with Google Analytics. Also, Site activity and Comments are published as RSS feeds.

Browser Support

Officially supported browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7.0+ (Windows)
• Internet Explorer 6.0 with Google Chrome Frame (Windows)
• Firefox 3.0+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Safari 3.0+ (Mac)
• Google Chrome (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Mobile browser interface:

•  iOS, Android, Blackberry, Nokia S60

Supported with down-level features:

• IE 5.5, 6.0 (Windows)
• Netscape 7.1+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Mozilla 1.4+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Firefox 0.8+ (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Safari 1.3+ (Mac)

Some components will work in “basic HTML” mode

• IE 4.0+
• Netscape 4.07+
• Opera 6.03+

Cookies and JavaScript are required.

Functionality in Low-bandwidth Environments

Google Apps has a lightweight interface by default. Choosing optimized graphics when developing a Sites template is important here. Also, for some components such as Gmail there is a further super-low bandwidth version called “basic HTML”. OffiSync and Google Apps Sync integration with Office reduces bandwidth consumption because only data is exchanged rather than data + user interface. Consumption of news and alerts through asynchronous mechanisms like RSS can further improve the usability in a constrained bandwidth environment or on a mobile device.

Ease of Use

Many people are already familiar with Google Services for personal or viral corporate uses

Managing User Accounts

Corporate Google Apps logins can authenticate to virtually all Google services. A Google Apps login can also co-exist with a personal Google account login without conflict. An available advanced feature of Google Apps is to act as an OpenID and/or OAuth identity service. Since these are open standards that services can tap into over the Internet OpenID and/or OAuth could be leveraged to provide a single username and password to iKnow applications based on PeopleMatrix with a modest custom development as well as to Drupal.

Since 1998, International Relief and Development has implemented programs in governance, community stabilization, economic growth, emergency response, agriculture, health, and infrastructure around the globe.  With annual gross revenues exceeding $500 million, IRD manages a diverse pool of technical talent on a large number of projects.  PeopleMatrix provides a powerful, easy-to-use tool for organizing recruitment effort and tracking communications with current and prospective employees.

WolfeReiter is working with MicroRate to build the first rating platform for Microfinance Investment Vehicles (MIVs).  LUMINIS will provide accredited investors with analytical tool to evaluate mutual-fund-style microfinance investment vehicles.

Nestle is using PeopleMatrix to power its proactive recruiting model and ensure that it has the right talent in the right places.  PeopleMatrix allows Nestle recruiters to define recruitment targets for specific job categories and titles, and generate reports that show progress toward goals.  It also enables recruiters to search for specific skills by proximity to a given zip code.  This gives Nestle the flexibility to make sure that they have the right talent in the right locations. 

WolfeReiter has worked with the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) to put in place online application and selection process tools for U.S. Department of State international educational exchange programs.  

PwC's International Development Team, part of the consulting giant's Government and Public Sector services division, recently adopted PeopleMatrix as its tool of choice for managing data on its stable of expert consultants.

PeopleMatrix enables PwC to mine volumes of resumes, contact data, and engagement history to identify the right experts to implement a wide variety of technical assistance projects across the globe.

WolfeReiter worked closely with PwC's systems group to facilitate smooth adoption of the tool from an infrastructure perspective, supporting installation, configuration, testing, and rollout.

With the release of PeopleMatrix v2, WolfeReiter adds a powerful off-the-shelf CRM solution to our family of products and services.  PeopleMatrix is a web-based application that enables businesses to manage and share contact data, customer relationship information, and recruitment information.

PeopleMatrix is built around a powerful and easy-to-use search mechanism that enables users to search contact data and the full-text of attached comments and documents.  For customers with large numbers of people-specific documents like resumes or customer profiles, this full-text search tool is an incredible advantage.

PeopleMatrix also makes it easy to work with groups of contacts.  Instantly create a contact group from search results, export contact group data to Excel or MS Word, send broadcast emails to contact groups, and more.

We understand that many businesses need flexible support and consulting to ensure smooth adoption of new software.  For PeopleMatrix, we offer training, import legacy data, and provide managed hosting to make it 100% painless to get up and running.

As part of a team of advisors led by the Emerging Markets Group, WolfeReiter is providing technical expertise to develop an online information center to promote the privatization of state-owned enterprises.  This initiative, sponsored by the U.S. Agency of International Development, supports efforts by the Afghan Ministry of Finance and Afghanistan Investment Support Agency to draw private sector investment in restructured parastatal industries.

WolfeReiter is producing a web content management system and a database of industry and sector data, both built on our BEDROCK solutions platform.

Microsoft recognizes solution providers who maintain a high-level technical expertise and industry certifications in specific technical “competency“ areas, and who are able to demonstrate successful projects and client references.

WolfeReiter was recently recognized for our competency in Information Worker solutions -- applications which enhance group productivity and facilitate team collaboration.  Examples include portals and content management systems, project and process management systems, collaboration and messaging applications, and business productivity tools.

In recent years, we have delivered a wide range of such solutions for clients in the metropolitan Washington region including new business development systems, knowledge management systems, web content management tools, document management applications, and customer relationship management systems.

WolfeReiter has been a member of the Microsoft Certified Partner program since 2003.