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POTPOURRI
The Necessary Extranet
Selecting an Extranet
There are many good solutions available, and selecting the best one
to meet your needs is a big decision. You could spend days, weeks
or even months researching and investigating the many options
out there. Before you start your search, consider the following
questions to help you create your requirements and help reduce
your research time.
» Should I build or buy? Extranets can be built in-house from
scratch based on detailed user requirements, but they can
take months to set up and are very expensive to develop and
implement. A variety of third-party providers offer good, time-
saving solutions. Although there are costs involved, there is
typically no soware to install, staff resources to recruit or
servers to maintain. Buying a solution would get your work
groups collaborating much faster than building.
» How many users will need access to the extranet? Get a head
count as some solutions charge per user.
» What is the anticipated volume of data to be shared? Solutions
can come with unlimited data storage, charge by site or charge by
the page.
» What is the anticipated duration of the project? Watch for
additional fees charged once the extranet reaches a certain age.
» Sensitive documents require forced watermarks with the name of
the person opening the file, the date and a "confidential" stamp.
» You want to share documents but restrict users from printing or
saving documents.
» A client routinely requests the entire project on CD.
And that's just the beginning.
Using an extranet
will improve
efficiency, streamline
communications and
reduce costs.
