First the (unapproved) possible usage of profile pictures and more, now it appears LI has decided to spam my activity feed with job postings.

job spam

 Cheerz,

Martijn

For now co-authoring is enabled/available for:
- Word
- Excel
- OneNote

More info from Microsoft on this topic can be found at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff718249.aspx (Co authoring overview in SharePoint 2010)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_office_word/archive/2009/09/09/co-authoring-in-word-2010.aspx  (Co-authoring ie simultaneous editing) in Word 2010

Recently I had the proper use case to actually use this feature for its proper duty!  Together with a few colleagues I was responsible for answering a large RfP under ‘some’ time pressure….. Everyone in college or in business who has had to work together on a document knows the caveats….. how to keep up with versions, how to merge the different additions, how to share the latest version….
Have you ended up with a merged document containing changes from more than 2 authors? Was it fun judging all those changes in that rainbow of colors? Bet it was…..

I’ll leave the general description of the co-authoring feature to the Microsoft dev team and instead will focus on the practical use of this nice feature. Some prerequisites:
- SharePoint 2010
- Word 2010 client
(this applies to the Word co-authoring of course… Excel is a bit different and I’ll hope to get to that later when I have to make a joint business-case . Also, checkin/checkout should be disabled.

So, where do we start? Well, in a SP workspace with a document in it….

And how? U could click on the document name, and then in the view choose edit in word (co-authoring in web app version not supported I believe…. Note to self: test that too…) or just call function menu and choose edit in word.

Ok, so then you are busy with multiple people in a document… the catch is that you might be editing the same document,but not the same section ! Word locks the area in which an editor is working for other users until the editor saves the changes to the server, thus releasing the sections and sharing the updated results with the other authors.

But, it is possible to comment in the section someone else is editing… not the same I agree, but perhaps usefull. However, the other user would have to save (and u too) to synch the changes and make them visible. Until then Andy wont see the comment…

Its easy to see where the other user(s) are editing. A bracket appears indicating the locked section. Commenting as said is still possible, editing isnt (see notification in bottom left corner) My section locking bracket appears differently, as seen below:

If you have a small document, or you have a writer going through it like a berserker touching every paragraph you might get something like this:

All sections locked until Andy saves the document, synching the changes and releasing them to me, the other author…
From the backstage view it is possible to see who is editing the document, and send them a message. A quick image:
 

An overview of users (and the ability to send them an IM via integrated OCS) is also available at the bottom of the screen…

When both users try to save at the same time the second one is blocked…. Wait a few seconds and try again… Oh yeah, the indicator on save button indicates available updates…

Thats all for now folks ! Enjoy your co-authoring and remember to save often ! No sectionsquatters !!!

Ciao,

Martijn

ps: Thnx to www.twitter.com/@awdhaan for testing this feature together with me….

besides ‘a slender and greatly elongated substance capable of being spun into yarn’ which sounds quite nice; it also defines fiber as: ‘Optical fiber is made of flexible glass and can support very high data transfer rates. An individual glass fiber, roughly the thickness of a human hair, is capable of carrying a distinct signal transmitted in the form of pulses of light’

Which sounds even nicer…. Guess what……..No, I haven’t taken up spinning… I finally ordered my FTTH or Fiber To Tinus’ Home as I define it… and got it delivered…Whats in the package; a 50 Mbit symmetrical internet connection using the XMSnet network… (100 Mbit speeds also available..)

The CO (which is quite near) was already hooked up to the backbone; and after my order a fiber was blown to my appartment and welded together….. resulting in a plug neatly fixed in the box, a PacketFront DRG500:

The plug with the fiber inside

Plug it in.... but where

pic with phone of wires....

300 mbps wireless?!?

A new broadband (300Mbits/s so they claim) router……. to serve my laptop and media center PC. My other PC is still hooked up to my 3Mbit DSL line (InternetPlusBellen) which also has two separate phonenumbers attached…. a legacy from the ISDN times…..

That leaves me with a (private) dual homing, dual access situation ! (50Mbit/50Mbit over fiber as primary connection, 3Mbit/0,5Mbit as backup….Soon, more about my newly found pleasures….

‘Fiber’ Tinus

(ps: at my current assignment I’m also productmanager for ‘location services’ = connecting all offices… experiences at home can only lead to more insight in how to gain customer satisfaction….

so…. deliver me the 1 Gbit

So….as I was playing around a bit with the Sharepoint files tool (which unfortunately doesnt work with earlier versions of WindowsSharepointServices) I tried to add an Office Liveworkspace (discussed earlier) as a repository for storing files used in groove…

whilst trying to add a sps2003 document library causes a nasty error; trying to add a Live workspace to the sharepoint files tool just returns the message ‘not implemented…’

interesting….

Although it might be too early to jump to any conclusions, it must be noted that the possibilities to use Groove in conjunction with Live workspaces have clearly been left open… or at least not closed for good….

i’ll keep watching !

Martijn

Recently I wrote about the new ‘Live workspaces’ which are available for everyone with a Microsoft Live account….The ‘Live’ family is growing fast, and now includes various products such as Live Mail, Messenger, Workspaces, Gallery etc etc.

A new great feature I decided to explore was ‘Live Writer’ which claims to ‘Easily publish pictures, video, and other rich content to your blog’

On BUIT.org we use WordPress as blogging software. Of course I was very interested to find out how well the Live Writer interacts with wordpress…. Very well I must say ! Live Writer took less than  a minute to be configured to talk to this wordpress blog….now you are reading the results !!

a great overview on how to configure Live Writer can be found @ http://mohasin.wordpress.com/2006/08/14/windows-live-writer-review-posting-into-wordpresscom/ 

regards,

Martijn

Your starting point could be compared to the ‘MySites’ function in SPS containing  a ‘Documents’ folder and the option to add a new workspace. Workspaces can of course be shared with other users; and contain a few basic tools…

an overview of the documents window:

Documents can easily be uploaded. If you choose to upload multiple documents, an active-x control is installed adding the workspace location to your save as list…….. another add-on enables you to save documents or spreadsheets directly from these applications to a Live workspace… ! full office-integration with an easy link to online storage…..

What can we do in the documents window or a workspace ? well, add stuff of course !! Only office formats and a few other items unfortunately…Versioning is enabled by default; and the workspace also includes a recycle bin.

Different types of workspaces can be created, but they all use the same basic tools.

The contact list can be managed from the workspace, and used in Outlook. Its not possible to add any items in the Outlook view.

I was able to add a task list and tasks, but didn’t get them in my Outlook… seems this isnt working yet but could be client-side.. (probably is…)

Every item can be commented, and other users of the workspace can click and read these posts. Each item has its own comments sidebar. No discussion functionality…. (comments are not threaded and earlier ones can be deleted without any problem)

Proof that its all a lean and mean sharepoint site in very slick skin in the end….

Very nice stuff ! still in Beta, but this is very promising for the future !

Martijn