We'll be posting up a list of frequently asked questions shortly. In the meantime, if you have a question please email us at: faq.convea.net

Q. Is it possible to modify what modules a user sees?
A. Yes- everything the user sees is determined through a User Access Profile.  You can create as many User Access Profiles as you need and assign them to whoever you choose.  A User Access Profile is created from the Site Manager module and is simply list of the available modules and permissions.  Take a look at Site Manager for more information of the administrative side of Intranet Suite.

Q. Are the applications top heavy?  I'm concerned about performance.
A. The modules are surprisingly lightweight as most of the heavy lifting is done by the platform components and libraries.  The Javascript is written in such as way that only the necessary portions are downloaded and cached to a users machine- if a user only ever accessed Calendar that would be the only script that was downloaded.   The beautiful thing about web-applications is that the great majority of their code is cached to disk the first time you load one, after that the only data being transferred is the data the module generates.  The way Intranet Suite and oneVision have been designed means that they offer far better performance than conventional web applications, XML, XMLHTTP and the multi-load framework ensure that only the bare minimum of server interaction is required.  All dialogs perform client-side validation too before securely transmitting their contents.

Q. Is Intranet Suite open source?
A. Yes and no.  Yes, the source code is open to inspection and modification - it's ASP script so if you need to customise it either for yourself or for a client, you are welcome to do that.  What it isn't is free.  We sampled the free, open source approach with out last release and the truth is that it's simply not sustainable. 

Q.  Why does it require Internet Explorer?
A.  Internet Explorer is a great platform.  We started this project before Firefox even existed, and back then you had a choice: either develop for the browser with a 95% market share or poke pins in your eyes and try and a develop next-generation web app in Mozilla.  You see, back then IE wasn't just the dominant browser, it also had a fantastic feature set that just wasn't available in other browsers.  You had VML, ActiveX, great graphics capability with the visual filters, a built in rich-edit component and probably best of all: the XMLHTTP object.  All of this functionality was available years before anyone else.  It's a shame that hardly anyone made use of these features, but they were always there.  We did, we made full use everything that IE offered, and then Firefox came along and whipped up a storm at a time when IE security was becoming a serious concern.

For an organisation that runs Microsoft technology internally, then choosing IE as the window to your Intranet is not an difficult choice to make.  For broader access and public services, cross-browser support is a necessicity, but in a corporate environment its an easy and choice.  We are developing a cross-browser version of our platform, but having a stable product on the market at this point on time was more important to us than supporting many browsers.