In a groupware system having a server apparatus (130) and a plurality of client apparatuses (110) connected thereto through a network (200), the server apparatus includes an agent server (230) and each of the client apparatuses includes an agent client (210). An agent generation unit (241) of the agent server generates an agent on the basis of an agent definition prepared by a user's input in an agent definition unit (211) of an agent client. A trigger monitor unit (242) or a trigger monitor unit (251) of another server monitors and detects a trigger specified in the agent definition; and an action database (248) or a filtering unit (252) of another server extracts the trigger specified in the agent definition. An action request processing unit (244) requests the associated server to do an action associated with the extracted trigger, and sends a processed result of the server to a report processing unit (245). The report processing unit prepares report information and, in response to user's request, sends it to a report unit (212).
Databases connected to the respective servers store associated agent definition information therein. In - order to change a series of operations involved by generation of an event caused by the agent definition, the operations of the individual servers are automatically changed without changing settings to individual systems for every event generation.