Supporting External User Communities with Livelink^®

Enhancing ad hoc interactions with clients, distributors, suppliers or partners with the free-flow of collaboration can prevent misunderstandings, reduce mistakes, improve productivity and save money.

Livelink has unmatched collaboration and knowledge management capabilities, but how do you transform a widely diverse set of people who may never have collaborated online before into instant Livelink fans? You don’t. Instead you give them a Formark application that compacts the powerful (but overwhelming for novices) Livelink interface into an uncomplicated web application tailored to show only the collaboration and tasks they need, in language they immediately understand.

Business processes that can benefit from collaborating with clients and business partners outside the organization include:

• Engineering consortia
• Managing client deployment projects
• Monitoring suppliers
• Issuing and processing RFPs
• Supporting 3rd party distribution channels
• Verifying regulatory compliance
• Surveying association members
• Moderating standards development & approval

Benefits of Engaging External Users

1. More effective collaboration. Collaboration only provides benefits if people will actively use it – Formark applications remove the usability barriers and let users focus on the content.
2. More efficient collaboration. Formark interfaces lead users directly to the work to be done, keep them focused on the task while they’re there and hide all the mechanics of how it gets done.
3. Lower user support costs. Formark applications remove the usability obstacles that cause most end-user calls for support.
4. Lower application support costs. Formark technology uses standard Microsoft web tools and environments, and isolates applications from upgrades to Livelink.

Formark External Applications
Learn about Formark Outside, an application that instantly engages users anywhere in the world to collaborate together on a project.

Learn about Formark Transmittals, an application that enables the controlled creation and the secure electronic distribution of engineering transmittal packages to internal and external parties.

Case Studies
Learn how Siemens ICN uses Formark Outside to improve network deployment projects.

Learn how ONR uses Formark Outside to collaborate with external researchers.