The Future of Micro Focus Collaboration and GroupWise: Looking into the Crystal Ball

There’s always a demand for the GroupWise roadmap, especially for those who have been long time devotees of the product.  In the last few years—the development of GroupWise has seen some notable releases—GroupWise 2014 R2 SP1, GroupWise 2014 R2 SP2, and GroupWise 18.  Each of these has brought new features and enhancements to the product like native Mac mail and calendar application integration, Filr integration, and conversation threading.

Probably the biggest indication that Micro Focus continues to take the future of GroupWise seriously was the acquisition of GWAVA.  This brought a full portfolio of supporting products that made GroupWise better: security, archiving, disaster recovery, and more.  That happened in late Fall of 2016—and since then—we’ve seen the release of both GroupWise 2014 R2 SP2 and GroupWise 18, not to mention Enterprise Messaging: the evolution of GroupWise.

A Common Foundation

Many customers seem to think the development path of GroupWise and Enterprise Messaging introduced in December 2017 are separate.  They are not.  GroupWise forms the base on which Enterprise Messaging is built. While some features (like GroupWise TeamWorks) are exclusive to Enterprise Messaging—both GroupWise and Enterprise Messaging have the same base code.

While not marketed as a “suite” of products, Enterprise Messaging is exactly that at this point in time.  There are no differences between GroupWise 18 and the email, scheduling, and instant messaging portion of Enterprise Messaging.  It is GroupWise 18.

Enterprise Messaging simply contains other separately installed products to make a complete enterprise-ready messaging platform:  security, archiving, disaster recovery, mailbox management, and chat-based teamwork.

Let’s dive into the future plans for GroupWise, since that is the basis of Enterprise Messaging.  As always, these are forward-looking statements and do not represent an obligation or commitment by Micro Focus to deliver on them.  (Yes—I always have to say things like that).   Having said that, let’s take a look at the exciting future of GroupWise.

GroupWise 18.0.1

A minor support update for GroupWise 18 was released in March 2018.  Several enhancements to existing GroupWise 18 features are of note:

  • Conversation Threading Enhancements:
    When replying inline to a conversation, you can select to copy the parent message or the original message as part of the reply.
    Inactive items won’t be marked as read.
  • GroupWise TeamWorks Integration Enhancements:
    You can now search for TeamWorks rooms in the GroupWise 18.0.1 client.
    You can create a new TeamWorks room in the client as well
    You can Favourite/Unfavourite a TeamWorks room in the client.
  • Drag and Drop Enhancements:
    The Attachment drop down now lets you drag and drop items.
    Drag and drop attachments and items to an inline reply.
    Encapsulated items and files can be dragged and dropped at the same time.

There were other changes and bug fixes as well and a complete change list can be found in the GroupWise 18 readme file located on the Micro Focus documentation site.

This release is consistent with the newer model of product release cycles planned in this portfolio:  following essentially a two-a-year release cycle.  The first release focus on enhancements, security, stability, and bug fixes—but does not introduce any new features.

The second release of the year will focus on larger improvements, new features, and new integrations—which brings me to our next version of GroupWise:  GroupWise 18.1

On The Horizon:  GroupWise 18.1

As for the future of GroupWise—there’s an update coming that moves GroupWise further down its path of being a more robust and integrated product.  Along these lines—you can expect to see deeper integrations with some of the products that were acquired when Micro Focus purchased GWAVA.  Probably most notable, the integration of GroupWise Mailbox Management (formerly GWAVA Vertigo) is planned.
This means that there will no longer be a separate install or management console for this product—but it will be integrated directly into the install and admin management console of GroupWise 18.1.

In order to activate these advanced features you will need either an Enterprise Messaging license key—or a valid GroupWise Mailbox Management (Vertigo) license key.  They will not be there by default if you have just a GroupWise license.  There may be other former GWAVA products similarly integrated into the product as well.

Along the same lines of integration, there is deeper and further integration with GroupWise TeamWorks planned.  The vision of GroupWise TeamWorks is a more immediate, social, and fun way to create chat-based teams for better collaboration that works seamlessly with your GroupWise email.

Figure 1:  TeamWorks Rooms are easier to find, create, and edit in the GroupWise 18.1 Client
Figure 1: TeamWorks Rooms are easier to find, create, and edit in the GroupWise 18.1 Client

Some notable improvements are the ability to see the difference between private and public TeamWorks Rooms directly from the GroupWise 18.1 Client.  (See figure 1).

Clicking on in the Rooms area for the context menu of a Room brings up the ability to search for Public Rooms, create new Public or Private Rooms, remove a Room from your Favourites list, as well as edit the Properties of a Room that you have created.

Clicking the Properties option from the context menu allows you to further edit the properties of a Room that you have created, including changing the name and description of the room, change the privacy or access settings of a room, and edit the members of a Room (Fig 2).

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Figure 2: Editing the Properties of a Room can now be done directly from the GroupWise 18.1 Client

 

Over all, the goal of this integration is to further seamlessly blend both traditional email with the immediacy of dynamic chat-based teamwork for a true workforce productivity solution. Users will now be able to interact with TeamWorks with the same amount of functionality as the mobile or web interfaces, without ever having to leave their GroupWise email client.

Along the same lines of improvements in GroupWise 18.0.1, there will also be further refinements to the conversation threading feature that was introduced in GroupWise 18.  These refinements include the ability to quickly adjust screen real-estate for the Quick Viewer, along with ability to increase the screen area when replying in-line to a thread, perfect for longer, more detailed responses.  Adjusting the visual area the Quick Viewer comes in two presets:  Wide and Extra Wide.

Depending on your choice, the information contained in the GroupWise main window will change to display both the subject and message preview as well as your folders (Wide) or remove the folder tree in favour of a reduced messages Mailbox and more space and formatting control over your in-line reply (Extra Wide).  The visual real-estate the Quick Viewer takes up will also change.  These two settings allow for a more easily functional approach for those that utilise the Quick Viewer to read and respond to messages without ever opening the messages in a new window (fig 3).

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Figure 3: Adjusting the different settings of Wide or Extra Wide changes the display real estate of the Quick Viewer

 

GroupWise 18.1 will also improve the search functionality in a few areas.  This includes the ability to search for specific terms inside message threads.  You can search for whole word matches, matching cases, and choose to have the matches highlighted by the search.  This makes finding information in long threads easier (fig 4).

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Figure 4: Searching inside message threads inside GroupWise 18.1

 

Improved finding and searching of the GroupWise Address Book is also planned.  This will allow you to more easily locate people, especially if you can’t exactly recall their full name.  For example, if you know you needed to send an email to someone named “John” in “Sales”—you would be able type in “John” and “Sales” and now locate people based on department, job title and other fields not previously included in the search function.

There will be further enhancements in the Messenger product as well in GroupWise 18.1  These include the ability to send files directly in Messenger and/or using Filr, and integration with Retain archiving for GroupWise so instant messages can be archived along with email.  Additionally, the ability to spell-check may make it into Messenger 18.1 as well.

There are some planned back-end architectural changes to reduce dependency on some third-party products as well—but such changes will be essentially transparent to both the end-user and email administrator.

The release of GroupWise 18.1 is planned for the second half of 2018, with GroupWise 18.1.1 planned for the first half of 2019.  The GroupWise 18.1.1 release will mainly focus on security and quality, along with minor enhancements—much like the GroupWise 18.0.1 release.

On the Radar:  GroupWise 18.2

While it’s still very early in its planning and design cycles, the development team is already working on some interesting features and improvements that will most likely appear in the GroupWise 18.2 release.  One such improvement I know is being worked on is a complete redesign of the WebAccess client to make it more responsive and accommodating of multiple screen sizes (mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop).  The goal of the redesign is to bring the experience of WebAccess more in line with the desktop client experience.

While the final results and functionality of the WebAccess redesign have yet to finalised, the initial design concepts reflect a much more modern look that closely resembles the default GroupWise Client on both desktop and mobile browsers.

While these features will probably not be available in time for the GroupWise 18.1 release, there is the possibility they may be released as a Tech Preview.  What does that mean?  A Tech Preview feature (like the improved web-access) would not be ready for full production use, but could be run non-supported in a lab to give GroupWise admins and users a look at what’s coming—as well as the opportunity to provide feedback before it makes it into a final, for-production release in the next version full version.

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Figure 5: Design concept for a future version of GroupWise WebAccess
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Figure 6: Design concept of mobile web access

The Tech Preview option may or may not materialise by the time 18.1 is released.  However, this “on the radar” look gives you a quick look into some features that the GroupWise development team is working on beyond the immediate roadmap.

Enterprise Messaging: The Continuing Evolution of GroupWise

As you will be aware, last December, Micro Focus released Enterprise Messaging, the natural outcome of Micro Focus acquiring GWAVA.  Micro Focus Enterprise Messaging is a suite of products right now that contain all the security, archiving, and disaster recovery capabilities needed for secure, continuous collaboration in today’s world.

The vision of Enterprise Messaging is to integrate various GWAVA components directly into the administration of GroupWise so it evolves from a suite of products to a more integrated experience for the email administrator.

Various functions will be enabled based on what licenses you have, whether that be GroupWise licenses, Enterprise Messaging, or stand-alone licenses from the heritage GWAVA products like GroupWise Mailbox Management, GroupWise Monitoring and Reporting, or others.  Part of this vision is being realised in the release of GroupWise 18.1 which will unite GroupWise Mailbox Management directly into the GroupWise install.  Other products will be integrated into Enterprise Messaging sometime H1 2019.

However, not all products included with Enterprise Messaging are scheduled to be integrated into the GroupWise install. One product is Secure Messaging Gateway which delivers anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-malware and network protection for GroupWise and other email platforms.

The Secure Messaging Gateway platform continues to evolve with several key releases coming over the next year.  These include:

Secure Messaging Gateway 7 (2nd half of 2018)

  • Localisation
  • Move to SUSE-based common appliance
  • Ideas portal
  • Monthly updates (Patch Thursday)
  • Policy and AV Signature Files updates
  • Quality improvements

Secure Messaging Gateway 7  (1st half of 2019)

  • Improved SaaS offering
  • Additional Micro Focus product integrations
  • Message inspection
  • End-to-end encryption

Looking at the roadmap and what’s on the radar the Micro Focus Collaboration portfolio remains a constantly improving and evolving space that promises to deliver continued value for long-term customers, as well as new customers looking to solid, stable enterprise messaging platform with low total cost of ownership.

There’s little doubt that both GroupWise and Enterprise Messaging will continue to focus on making both the administrator and end-user experience more seamless and integrated across various products, while constantly improving and fine-tuning features.

 

This article was first published in OHM Issue 41, 2018/2, p7-10.

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