RefreshingApps.com

Broadchoice Workspace is the desktop AIR application that allows easy collaboration between team members helping them stay connected and in sync. They also have an iPhone version for people on the go.

Save time, reduce email traffic, and synchronize your team in real time with built-in smart messaging
Increase productivity and simplify infrastructure needs by posting files, notes, tasks, and bookmarks directly into work spaces – without the file size limitations of email

The AIR application launches fullscreen and gives you an overview of what has happened within your groups over the period you choose from the select box. The left shows you library of items that you can interact with. These include messaging, file sharing, tasks and notes and people.

One main feature is the creation of spaces within Broadchoice Workspace. They make it easy to keep track of what is going ion with a particular sale, project or team. Once you have a space you then publish content and add people into the spaces. The AIR application utilises the Broadchoice software as a service backend for all of the file transactions and messaging. Access controls allow for content owners and publishers to control access.

There is Salesforce integration for those who require it, giving more access to the features across your organisation.

The application offers lots of functionality and although it is a paid for service (currently $99 USD per user per year), there is a 30 day trial for you to see how it will fit within your team or organisation. Fast clear communication is the objective of this AIR application and it serves that very well through a clean clear UI.

Video Review

Broadchoice Workspace AIR application review from RefreshingApps on Vimeo.

Design eye

When started this AIR application looks polished from the layout to the iconography used. There is a lot of functionality here but without the large button bars and menu options.

The corporate colour palette mean this application will look right at home on the business desktop and the integration with Salesforce.

The forms are clear but there are design differences between forms not sure this was intentional or not. Also the standard Flex form input validation is not really up to the job. Just highlighting an error field in red without an explanation until you mouse over it is not great, especially as in this case it is hard to see the required start on the field labels.

Technical eye

This is built using the Adobe Flex 3 framework with the AIR runtime SDK. It also makes use of the Salesforce API for Salesforce integration.

In Summary

Interesting application that is well executed. As I did not try this within a real team working environment it is best to give it a try to ascertain it’s effectiveness for you, this review does not cover all the details.

I’m not sure the bookmarks feature is really going to be used as people have better functionality in things like delicious or directly in the browser. If they could set it so you could bookmark places within the AIR app like a particular message or note within a space that would be more useful.

The video tutorials directly within the application is a very nice feature and more Adobe AIR applications should use this feature. Nice.