LAS VEGAS -
Instant Messaging (IM) has lived a number of lives in its ten years at WestStar CU here, from restricting employees to one-way monologues to the ground-breaking possibility of hitching up with the credit union’s VoIP phone system.
In 2005, an in-house program called WestStar Instant Messenger (WIM) was intentionally designed with a “send” button, but without a “reply” button, said the CU’s Shimon Klein, the CU’s IT tech and developer. Employees only had the rudimentary ability to send notes to colleagues–but they couldn’t reply.
“WIM was more like ‘IM-Minus,’” said Klein. “WIM was designed as a one-way, fire-and-forget system that did not support conversations.”
“We purposely designed the program to be effective for sending messages, but we purposely left out features, such as a ‘reply’ button and chat rooms because we didn’t want it to turn into a chat client and hinder staff productivity,” explained Steve Cook, AVP-IT at the $190-million CU.
WIM had other shortcomings, Klein said. Employees could only see one message at a time instead of a running string of messages, and it was difficult to search for a particular message, as there was no “sort by sender” function.
WIM didn’t last long.
“It turned out that the need for work-related conversations was greater than the potential loss from non-work related conversations,” Klein said.
About one year ago, WestStar turned to the free Spark IM client and Openfire chat server, both provided by Portland, Ore.-based Jive Software.
“When we decided to embrace more features, it made sense to us to use an open source product that had already been developed and could support plug-ins contributed by the open source community instead of committing our own development time enhancing WIM,” Cook said.
Spark and Openfire are both built on Jabber Inc.’s Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocol, which allows open and proprietary IM systems to communicate.
If WIM was “IM-Minus,” then Spark comparatively could be considered “IM-Plus.” In addition to having two-way conversations, employees can also tell if other employees are “available,” “on the phone,” or “in a meeting,” said Cook.
Asked if employees are tempted to waste time on the Spark tool, Cook said they are pretty much on their best behavior.
“We have a communication policy that addresses the proper use of electronic communication systems,” he said. “And staff is reminded by a message when they log-in that it is intended for business use.”
WestStar can also log and audit all IM sessions to find out what employees are chatting about–and to satisfy regulatory compliance, Cook added.
In addition, Openfire integrates with Microsoft Active Directory, making it possible to manage IM-ers with just one user database.
Although WestStar doesn’t measure IM against e-mail and telephone technologies, it has earned solid standing among the CU’s communications tools, Cook said.
“IM works because it is quick and easy when someone you need to speak to is already on the phone, with a member or is not in their email client,” Cook said. “It also allows for important alerts to be easily sent to all employees or specific departments instantly.”
IM may grow to meet other needs, as well. “I see it becoming more unified with peripheral technologies such as VoIP phone systems and even integration with remote desktop-type applications,” Cook added. “You could be messaging with another user and request control of their PC to perform help-desk functions.”
In addition, some disparate IM systems can communicate with each other, so credit unions with one IM tool could use it to talk across the Internet to a third party with a different IM.
Whereas WestStar chose the free versions of Spark and Openfire, Jive also offers an enhanced enterprise version for $15 annually per user.
Long before Spark and WIM, WestStar was an IM pioneer among credit unions. “We started instant messaging in 1998 with the install of our Novell Network,” said Cook. “The Novell client included a quick and dirty instant messenger.”
As WestStar migrated to Windows server and away from Novell, it took IM design into its own hands, developing WIM.
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Read more about IM at cujournal.com and search the following bolded terms in the archive:
FYI, CUs Find IM Is AOK
Three Tips From A CU Vet On Implementing IM
Hello, I’M I.M.
For info on this story:
* www.weststar.org
* www.jabber.com
* www.jivesoftware.com (c) 2008 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com
