Step 1: Segmenting your users into profiles

This is perhaps the most critical step in the customization of any collaboration package. The four most typical segments I have encountered are Executives, Employees, Customers, & Partners. Each of these groups has a distinctly different set of needs and responsibilities. Typically I keep employees and executives in a single segment but many people separate these groups out of principal. I have used profiles to transform the HyperOffice suite from a simple collaboration suite to a full-fledged extranet for my customers and partners while leaving all of the collaboration features and intranet functionality for the employees and executives.

I recommend: 
HyperOffice uses something called profiles to separate sets of users. The profiles manager can be found in the "portal administration" section. Profiles allow the administrator of the portal to specify:

1) Which modules will appear for a set of users

2) What section the user should start on (they call this a landing page)

3) How you want their "desktop" to look (you can lock it so they can't change it)

When using HyperOffice there are many different modules to choose from. Most are enabled by default. In order to simplify the product I typically do not use the default profile and I choose instead to create new profiles for each set of users.

A profile for employees or executives typically contains most of the personal HyperOffice modules whereas a profile for a customer will usually not contain a personal section. I typically turn off all personal features for customers or partners and allow them to access only the groups they are members of. (extranets aren't for personal information)

Step 2: Brand your portal with your logo

Many people underestimate the importance of branding their portal with their companies logo or modifying the login page to come from their own web site. This is one of the features I truly love about HyperOffice because it can become almost entirely re-branded.

I recommend: 
Start by simply uploading your company logo so that it appears on the HyperOffice desktop of every user when they log in. This may seem like a small step but it is a truly powerful motivator for your employees and will drive user adoption.

In addition to the desktop being brandable, each group allows you to upload a custom logo to show on the group homepage. If you have turned off the personal section and are re-directing your customers or partners to a group... this is a great place to brand the product.

I recently discovered that you can even create custom icons for links that you add to your desktop so that you can have the familiar icons that your company currently uses to launch its own applications.

Step 3: Customize the domain and login from your own web site

HyperOffice allows you to customize the domain so that users can receive email at their own company domain (a feature we all expect from any mail provider) but it also allows the company to put the login page on its own domain as well.

I recommend: 
Part of the standard offering for a custom domain on hyperoffice is setting up your own login page at office.yourcompany.com (they use the site office.netresultsglobal.com in their demos so you can check it out to see what this kind of login page looks like). I find this to be a decent branding option but I really love the second option they offer (again you may have to ask for it) to get a custom login snippet that can be included on the main web site.

Using this snippet I have been able to add the login box to my clients web sites and completely brand the users experience to remove the word "HyperOffice" or its logo from the sign-in experience. I have not been able to achieve this with any of its hosted competitors and it has enormous value.

Step 4: Integrate your own applications into HyperOffice

This is a bit of an advanced step but I am currently working with a customer that has a set of their own web-based applications that they want integrated into HyperOffice. The goal is to launch them without requiring the user to re-login after they have logged into HyperOffice. There are 2 ways to launch applications from HyperOffice... the links section and something called the applications tab. The applications tab is a well-kept secret that HyperOffice doesn't advertise but it is a truly powerful feature.

I recommend: 
Using the application tab, my client was able to add a new tab to the left side of the HyperOffice application with their own set of icons. The truly incredible part, however, was that... when the user clicks on one of the custom icons the following steps happen:

1) Their application is launched either in a new window or inside of HyperOffice
2) The application being launched can call back to HyperOffice to determine who the user is and whether they are pre-authenticated

Unfortunately I am still in the planning stages of this project so I can't give details but the company is very helpful if you ask them to describe it or provide documentation... its just beyond the scope of this article for me to explain it further.

Step 5: Add your own content

This is the newest feature that HyperOffice has added and it is really cool. I wasn't aware of it when I first started writing this article but, after I called them to ask a quick question they urged me to take a webinar on it and I am just ecstatic. The HyperOffice "Publisher" allows an admin to add custom content to their portal finally pushing HyperOffice from an awesome collaboration suite to a true Intranet replacement.

I recommend: 
Using the publishing feature you can add your own web pages directly into HyperOffice. I am already contacting my customers so I can begin putting their HR manuals, sales paraphernalia, and other common materials online in live, browseable HTML.

Judging from the Webinar I just took, publisher seems to be a way to perform virtually unlimited amounts of customization to HyperOffice and I highly recommend looking into it. Perhaps when I start to work with it I will edit this article and give some more insight.

Either way, here is a link to the information they have on their web site (although it really doesn't do it justice from what I can see).

http://www.hyperoffice.com/hypermain/publisher.cfm?menuset=product