EnThinnai: A Social Enterprise App

Aswath Raohttp://www.enthinnai.com 

Summary

RequirementsDescription of EnThinnaiCloud-ready ArchitectureRoadmap

Enterprise-specific Requirements

Provide collaborative tools New Gen workforce is used to and is expecting

But ability to maintain privacy and confidentiality requirements of a corporate entity

Federated identity scheme All content must be corporate knowledge-base Presence information

Availability of a specific individual Availability of an individual with some functional responsibility/expertise

Real-time Communication tool Text, Voice and Video Both internal and external

Collaboration tools Conferencing, Screen sharing, collaborative editing

EnThinnai Overview

A repository of digital information of a user and shared with one or more "buddies"

Users and Buddies are identified by their OpenIDs Or by Enterprise issued responsibility tags Or by self expressed interest and experience (much like lists)

Buddies don't have to be EnThinnai users A buddy can be assigned a "null" OpenID An Enterprise can have top level control on which OpenIDs can be included

EnThinnai is a Unified Communications (UC) Platform Pull contact-specific Presence information IM Voice/Video Archiving of chat sessions

Access to any stored information can be embedded in any web page

Features and Capabilities

Availability Status ("Presence") Customizable for a single or a group of buddies Buddies pull this information when required

Notes Cross between email and blog It is structured like email It is stored and accessed like a blog post

File sharing Contact Information

Address Phone information Internet methods: email, IM

IM/Voice/Video Utilizes WebRTC/Websocket Every chat session is recorded and archived

Use Case: Collaboration

Use Notes to record an ongoing exchange of ideas and viewpoints

Easily add new members to the team at a later date

Use file sharing to share documentsUse IM/Voice/Video to have dialog

IM sessions are archived for later referenceEasy to add partners and customers because

of use of OpenID Just as easily the access permission can be removed

Use Case: Customer Interaction

Access URLs can be placed in different places in the Company's web site

Customers can easily reach appropriate people associated with the customer's need Product description page -> Sales organization FAQ page -> Support Career section -> HR Deep context -> Fine routing based on Cookies and other info

Much like Amazon’s Mayday button

Archived conversations Continue an interactive session at a later date Efficient way to build a Knowledge Base

Cloud-ready Architecture

Service definition ensures the growth is linear and not polynomial Presence information is pulled when needed Shared content is pulled when needed When a new user joins the system, only the server associated with

that user is impacted EnThinnai is both low-end and high-end scalable

5-user (unlimited buddies) system can run on a single Raspberry Pi It can run on a Public cloud like Amazon Web Services

Designed for cloud Service logic runs on an instance (can be added incrementally as

new users are added) Bulk data/files are stored in storage instances (can be added

incrementally as new data are stored) Cloud provided backup for failovers

Chat Application

User generates a “contact link” and shares with others As a link in a web page, email signature or biz

card By embedding an iFrame Can be “deep contexted” – so user will know

the context of a call from a buddyEmail soliciting comments on a doc will contain a

link identifying that docWhen a call is received, the UI at the callee end will

identify the doc and the user can view the doc easily

Generating Contact Link

Look of an iFrame

Initial screen

After sending the first message & Permission setting

Caller’s view Callee’s view

Full Chat Session (in progress)

• Simultaneous IM and Video

• Can end just video

• Mute one or more video components

• Ability to Buzz the other end to get attention

Product Roadmap

Multi-party chatReal-time document editingSecond Life kind of room sharingPermission based on Enterprise issued

responsibility tagsPermission based on self expressed interest

and experienceEncryption of data

During data transfer Storage

Background

Background

Gen Y and Millennials are dominating the workforce

They require social collaborative toolsThey have used tools like Facebook and

TwitterThey intuitively know the benefitsBut Enterprises have fiducial and

regulatory constraints

Features of Social Networks

Easy information sharing Condensed information with links for details

Quick dissemination Spread by others using codified “forward” mechanism

Percolation of good ideas Ability to “vote” up or down

Real-time 1-1 and group communicationModeled after Facebook and TwitterBut blind emulation of these networks may not

be appropriate

Benefits

Customer focus Increased engagement Faster response Quick lead conversion

Workplace focus Instant collaboration among employees Weak-ties become collaborators Weakened departmental silos

Corporate Realities

But corporations have regulatory requirements and fiducial responsibility for data control and access control

Need to allow for limited sharing Business partnerships and customer interactions require ease

of federation at both the enterprise and individual levels Both inclusion and exclusion must be easily accomplished

Real-time Communication needs must be addressed Multi-modal Permission based

Flow model is not always appropriate Ability to add new people to previously shared content Repository of corporate knowledgebase These suggest some desired attributes of Enterprise Social

Software

Identity and Authentication

Simple federation implies that identity must be user-centric

Organization control requires filtering capability

Must allow for different grades of authentication Strong for sharing confidential data Non-existent for casual and first-time visitors

Information Exchange and Sharing

email is a widely used tool Though widely despised

It is a repository of organizational memory But difficult to pass it onto new employees The trail may be diffused

Blogs and wikis are better models But they lack access control

Presence Information

Simple online/offline is meaningless in an always on world

Rich Presence will have multiple sourcesPresence information will depend on the

receiverSecurity considerations while federating

Presence information

Real-Time Communication

Need for multi-modal communicationRequire a way to escalate the mode of

communication using a permission model Text-based communication is less intrusive Voice communication is richer Video has its own advantages, but most intrusive

Persistent sessionsOrganizations may require the ability to archive

communication sessions

Collaboration Tools

Real-time, collaborative editing of documents

Multi-party conferencingScreen sharingSecond Life like virtual world based

collaboration sessionAgain ability to keep the session

persistent and ability to archive