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MISER - Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research

MISER (Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research) is an interdisciplinary research institute of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It provides a variety of services to the University, the Commonwealth, and to national and international audiences.

Faculty, students, and staff at MISER come from several academic areas, including the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the School of Education, the College of Food and Natural Resources, the School of Management, and the School of Public Health.

We are also the State Data Center for Massachusetts, which means we are the liaison between Massachusetts and the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and we house all the latter's data on Massachusetts.

We have people working in many different locations: two different cities (Amherst and Boston), and several different locations within the Amherst Campus. Also, our faculty associates carry out their normal academic duties in addition to their work for our institute.

We have about 30 persons working with us, including faculty, staff and students in several locations

1. Client Profile
     
1 Who is in charge of implementation?
Name: Mr. Richard Urena
Title: Systems Administrator and IT manager
2 How did MISER find out about Cybozu?
Via the freshmeat.net web site.
3 Has MISER employed other groupware applications before?
Yes, we have used Novell GroupWise before, but it proved inadequate for our needs, as well as pretty buggy. Long ago (early 1990s) we also used an application called Futurus Team, which is now defunct.
4 How has MISER been meeting information needs before implementing Cybozu
products?
We used the scheduling and address book functions with Futurus and, later, GroupWise. The "whereabouts" function was done with a physical in/out board, which didn't work too well due to the fact that we are dispersed among many different locations.

2. Implementation Issues & Reasons to Choose Cybozu
  The main motivations were:
  1. We needed something better than an in/out board for keeping track of people. In particular, the people in charge of answering the phones were having an increasingly difficult time knowing where everybody was at any given time.
  2. We needed something that was usable from our Boston office, as well as from the Amherst campus. Security concerns dictated that we did not want to use GroupWise across the internet between Amherst and Boston, and for various reasons we are not able to set up a VPN between these locations at the present time. On the other hand, running Cybozu on a web server using the SSL protocol made it possible for users everywhere to use the system, with SSL encryption providing adequate confidentiality for our purposes.
  3. We liked the fact that the interface is via a web browser, which means that no client installation or administration is required. This was a definite plus compared to e.g. the GroupWise client --which I can only describe as "administrator-unfriendly.
  4. We liked the fact that we could run the Cybozu server on Linux. This was a key sign of security and reliability.
  5. Cybozu's modularity was another crucial factor. Although Cybozu can do "everything" for you, it does not force you to do so, which was an extremely important consideration (for example, we did not want our users to switch to a new email system).
1 Were there any problems during the roll out?
There were only minor technical glitches, but overall the product worked "out of the box". The minor "problems" we experienced were mostly behavioral in nature, due to the unavoidable change in habits that were required of our users. These have ceased to be a factor after the initial adjustment period.
2 Why did you make the final decision to implement Cybozu products?
Cybozu met all our important requirements, worked very well during the trial period, and was reasonably priced.

3. System Setup Details
1 Which Cybozu office products are implemented?
We primarily use Scheduler, Whereabouts, and Address Book. The "Reservation" component, as currently implemented (Cybozu 4) is not useful to us, and we simulate its functionality via the Scheduler.
2 Number of users using Cybozu products?
As of today, we have 35 users registered on our Cybozu system.
3 What kind of server machine and network configuration are used to run Cybozu products?
Our Cybozu server resides on an inexpensive Intel-based PC running Slackware Linux, and the Apache web server with SSL extensions (Apache-SSL). This machine (which performs other functions as well) resides outside of our firewall, thus accessible from anywhere via the internet.

There are, of course, security concerns with placing a server on the internet, but those are not necessarily related to Cybozu.
4 Do you have a full-time administrator for Cybozu products?
No. Given the moderate size of our organization, and the ease of use of Cybozu once it is set up, a dedicated administrator is not needed.

4. End User Response
1 Any feedback from actual end users?
The majority of our users have been happy with Cybozu from the beginning.

Initially, I performed certain customizations (for example, the size of HTML fonts on certain pages) prompted by user comments and feedback. Version 4 also addressed a few of the initial missing features. Everyone in our organization now uses Cybozu and it has become routine.

There are still things we would like to see added to the product (better synchronization with PDAs, for example) but users are aware that these may come in future Cybozu
versions.

2 How are the end users using Cybozu office everyday?
All users update their Whereabouts as needed. Significant portions of our users utilize the Scheduler to handle their appointments. And most importantly, the people who answer the phones in our main office use several of the features concurrently: messaging (memos), whereabouts, schedule, etc. Cybozu has effectively solved all the problems our
central office staff were experiencing.

As I briefly mentioned above, we use Cybozu for special scheduling of facilities (i.e. a computer classroom) as well.
3 Do you offer training?
For new users, I give a brief introduction to the system. After that, training is rarely necessary because the web interface is easily understandable. Experienced users
also share tips with newcomers.

5. Overall evaluation of Cybozu products
1 What are the strengths and weaknesses of Cybozu products?

Overall strengths?

  1. Modularity (you only use the parts you need/want)
  2. Customizability of the HTML code
  3. Ability to run on Linux
  4. All that is needed on the client end is a web browser
  5. I've gotten good response from Cybozu after bug reports

Overall weaknesses?

We would like to see some improvements in the Facilities Scheduler.

Also, the Palm sync component is not usable due to the fact that it cannot coexist with the regular desktop Palm software. This is perhaps a limitation of the Palm system itself, but in any case, this limitation makes it impossible for most of our users to switch to Palm Sync. For example, we have faculty associates who also need to keep other scheduling items on their desktop palm software, in addition to Cybozu.

2 Total satisfaction?
We are very satisfied with Cybozu and I would definitely recommend it.