Documentation for GroupCast is scant, consisting solely of the "Using This Database" document. The documentation provides rudimentary instructions for filling out the various forms, but it provides no insight into the more complex issues. Connectria's Web site provides no technical support section, nor does it have technical support contact information.

Wish list
Here's my wish list for what I'd like to see in future versions.

Mail distribution
I would like to see several more distribution mechanisms added to GroupCast. I think it's important to be able to send messages to everyone at one or more specified locations (as defined by the "location" field in the NAB person document). It would also be convenient to select names from the NAB for a single message without having to create a NAB group for the purpose of one mailing. Finally, a distribution choice of "Everybody in the Public Address Book" would be useful, because in some companies, "everybody" represents more than one organizational unit.

Licensing and pricing
I think GroupCast would be useful in any organization having more than one or two hundred people. The pricing model makes GroupCast uneconomical for organizations with fewer than perhaps 1,000 people. I would like to see pricing available for 1 to 300 and 300 to 3,000 levels.

Security issues
The security model for GroupCast requires improvement. The ability to create and edit profiles should be separated from the ability to send messages. This would give administrators a finer level of control, and it would allow them to establish practical levels of security to apply to different user populations.

Handling attachments
Large attachments eat up large disk space, and some people never delete anything. Consider the case of the CEO of an organization sending 25,000 employees a 15MB .PDF copy of the annual report. That's 375GB of disk space. I would like to see GroupCast have an option to post attachments in one central location (perhaps within its own database) and send a doclink and/or URL in the message.

Name resolution
When messages are sent to groups, GroupCast sends a separate message to each member of the group. However, GroupCast resolves group members only one level deep. When groups are nested, (i.e., groups contain other groups) some emails are addressed to individuals by name and others to entire groups as a group name. Since groups can be nested many levels deep, it's quite easy for people to receive multiple copies of the same message. I would like to see GroupCast go through a process that would resolve all groups into individual names and eliminate duplications.

Summing it up
Table A shows a break down of general information about GroupCast.