Advertisment

Instan-t Collaboration Suite

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

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.

Advertisment

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.

Direct Hit!
Applies To:

IT managers



Price:Rs 82,500 approx for 100 users


USP: Messaging and collaboration within an enterprise


Primary Link: tinyurl.com/2eyxo7


Google Keywords: Instan-t collaboration


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.

Advertisment

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
Advertisment

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.

Advertisment
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.

Advertisment