OpenText is opening up its Extended ECM product so that SAP users can access shared workspaces from their preferred user interface, in a bid to provide for more intuitive collaboration on content relating to SAP business transactions.

Also resold by SAP AG as the SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management (SAP Extended ECM) application by OpenText, the new version adds new social capabilities, including the ability to create user profiles and activity feeds, case management tools, increased security and tighter integration between ECM and SAP applications.

Business Workspaces have been introduced to relate content to SAP business processes. These workspaces are managed together with business objects in SAP solutions such as customers, vendors, products or materials.

The workspaces provide consistent access to business data and unstructured content for users working in different applications with different front-ends, such as SAP GUI, the Web-based Extended ECM UI, desktop applications (Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office) and the SAP NetWeaver Portal, among others.

Workspaces also incorporate collaboration tools such as workflows, follow-ups, discussions and activity feeds.

"It’s well proven that if you can remove obstacles that get in the way of people working together effectively, they actually do work better together," said Patrick Barnert, Vice President of SAP Solutions at OpenText.

"With this latest release of Extended ECM, a big part of our effort was around making it incredibly easy for users to access information from a comfortable environment tied to the SAP business context. Developing collaboration and social tools that help customers increase user productivity is a key area of focus for us."