Computers and software systems overview

Office Automation and Group Collaboration Software

One office automation and group collaboration software that is used in many organizations is the Online Leave Management System. There are many software houses that develop such kind of software to automate the needs of employees during processing of leave applications. An Online Leave Management System is an automation software where employees who wish to take their leave from office can do the filing of their leave applications online. All the employees need is a connection to the Internet to access the application system and do the filing.

One advantage of the Online Leave Management System is that it eliminates the conventional process of filing leave applications via written forms where processing of such application may take a few days before an employee will know whether his leave application is approved or not. As indicated at ferret.com on the advantage of an online leave management system,

"...eliminates paperwork and cuts delay by enabling employees and supervisors to action time-off applications simply by entering the dates and type of leave being sought after the employee has viewed his or her entitlements online"

Moreover, with this online system, employees who need to take an emergency or urgent leave from office are provided with means to immediately inform their organization. By just being online and filing their leave, an employee can prevent his employer from doubts or wondering why he is not present in the office. Similarly, with the Online Leave Management System, employers can be immediately informed of an employee's leave plans or urgent leaves which can allow the employers to plan for alternative measures as an anticipation to things that might occur during an employee's leave. In some system, it is not just the employers who can be informed of one employee's leave but also the other colleagues of an employee.

In the side of the disadvantages, on the other hand, there is almost none that can be found from an Online Leave Management System. The first and foremost drawback of an Online Leave Management System, although not a problem, is the responsibility of an organization to maintain the online system.

Another office automation and group collaboration software that is very much present in many offices and organizations these days is the automated Time-IN/OUT System. As with the Online Leave Management System, there are also many developed software that have the same purpose. Time-IN/OUT Systems function as automated registration of the time that employees arrive and take-off from office (uburst.com) Such systems use database where the arrival and departure time of employees from office are recorded.

One advantage of Time IN/OUT Systems is that the conventional process of manually logging the time attendance of employees is eliminated. Consequently, it eliminates the time-consuming process for employees to fall in line to manually register their time in Time Logbooks of offices. Another advantage of this kind of system is that it can facilitate the computation of salaries that employees will receive. This is possible during the integration of the system to payroll systems of an organization where the number of hours of attendance of an employee can be computed to account for his salary. The third advantage of Time IN/OUT systems is that employers can track the attendance record of their employees. Similarly, employees can also track from the system their own attendance records.