Ajax Knowledge Sphere

Ajax Knowledge Sphere is a well structured, knowledge-management solution for medium to large organizations. It is completely Web based and has various categories (called portals) based on the type of knowledge they manage. So, there are portals for team collaboration, managing content, information, user communities, etc. 

On login, every user gets a separate home page called the summarizer. This has various pull-down menus and links for all the communities and projects that the user has joined in the collaboration portal. Plus, there’s a notice board and an idea board.

The former displays important company information, while the latter is a kind of blogging tool. The Web page also has a search facility, but that only lets you find information in one portal at a time. You can’t do a global search. 

The software is good for capturing all sorts of information in one central location. The collaboration portal, for instance, has a neat and intuitive structure. It has a project category listing, which users can choose from and either initiate or take part in discussions on them. It’s similar to newsgroups, albeit more structured. Members can manage contacts relevant for the specific project they’re working on. Other options are an event calendar, link list and book list, and, of course, online chat. The info portal, to a certain extent, gives a base for users to store/systemize their personal knowledge. The options here range from simple idea posting to creating and participating in communities. Another important component is the message center, a sort of e-mailing system for internal users. Users are greeted by an alert message whenever they have unread or new messages. One flaw in this, however is that if a message is sent to a user whose username doesn’t exist in the Ajax Knowledge Sphere address book, no error message is generated. So, if you type in a username incorrectly, you’ll never know whether the mail reached that person or not. 

One good thing about the interface is that all the important links are present on every page. So no back clicking to go to that elusive link. The other portals also show a similar consistency in design and usage. Learning how to use the software isn’t very difficult. It’s compatible across different Web browsers like IE and Mozilla. It’s totally Java based and uses Tomcat as the backend, so no additional cost is required here. The database cost, however, might be there. It needs a database that can support an ODBC-JDBC bridge. A functional MS SQL Server database was provided to us for testing.

On the management front, you can manage users, the system or individual portals from the same interface. Access restrictions can be done at the user level depending upon your organization’s hierarchy. Perhaps the biggest drawback of this software is the installation. It requires one to make changes in the source code (JavaScript/Java code), and the accompanying documentation doesn’t explain this very clearly. But once set up, the online help for using the software is well written. One feature we missed in the software is the ability to share different types of documents. All information sharing in the software is text based, so if you have a Word document you’d like to share with others, you won’t be able to because the software doesn’t support it. 

The Bottom line The rationale behind knowledge management cannot be quantified in direct money returns. Such software usually contributes to a company’s profits indirectly via an increase in intellectual property. Thus, Ajax Knowledge Sphere is tipped as a mid-range solution at about Rs 4.5 lakh, and the ROI analysis for this would differ from company to company. It can be used by most companies with a network in place. 

Ankit Khare