Teamplate adds Outlook support to workflow software

Workflow software vendor Teamplate Inc. plans to release Monday a new update of its .Net-enabled software, adding to the product’s integration with Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook software.

Teamplate, based in Calgary, Canada, works closely with Microsoft and has built its product line around Microsoft’s .Net platform. Teamplate’s eponymous software is intended to help businesses link

employee-driven and application-driven aspects of various business processes.

Teamplate already offered integration with several Microsoft applications, such as the SharePoint collaboration products, but Teamplate has not previously included support for Microsoft’s popular Outlook e-mail and calendar software. Adding that support significantly expands Teamplate’s base of potential users and extends the workflow software’s potential uses, company spokesman Cornelius Willis said.

“Now that we’re inside Outlook, it opens up options. You could get your workflow tasks with your Outlook tasks. You could initiate workflow from an Outlook client — like a purchase order,” Willis said. “With business processes, user acceptance can be a challenge. We’ll do anything we can to make it easier for users to take on the new application, and Outlook offers a familiar interface.”

Other changes in Teamplate 4.0 include a development environment more similar to Microsoft Visual Studio .Net and a new events architecture that allows processes to run automatically in response to triggers.

One Teamplate customer said the software has helped his agency cut in half the time needed to move press releases and other external communications through the approvals process.

Because much of its work is classified, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in Arlington, Virginia, has an extensive system for moving proposed press releases though several departments for vetting. Several months ago, DARPA initiated a project to reduce the 46 days that process now takes, and to better track changes made as a document circulates. Using Teamplate in conjunction with Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Server, DARPA has developed a new system that cuts the approval time frame down to 15 to 21 days, said Dan Debroux, creative director for DARPA’s solutions group.

That project will go live by the end of the month, Debroux estimated, after which he plans to put Teamplate to use on several more projects. For an upcoming revamp of DARPA’s internal IT products ordering catalog, he expects to use the new Outlook integration features.

“(Teamplate is) one of the only companies that has a tight bond with Microsoft and the SharePoint Portal 2003. They’re a real front-runner in that department,” Debroux said. “Based on the success of our first initiative, we have about four or five other applications we’d like to do, taking advantage of that marriage.”