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November 04, 2009

SharePoint Workspace: The renamed Groove has gotten groovier

Administration gets easier, but the new client functionality goes even further to ease users' SharePoint adoption

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To address that concern, the SharePoint Workspace client acts as a middleman to help users work with documents on their systems, as well as drag and drop new documents to the library. And because it synchronizes content for offline viewing, the SharePoint Workspace client even lets users search for documents from within their PC. It is a welcome bridge between your users (especially those who have to work offline at times) and your SharePoint content. Because your use of SharePoint is only going to grow over time, especially with the decommissioning of Public Folders in future Exchange versions, this middleman role is essential to user acceptance.

The library support also allows Office documents to gain new capabilities, the SharePoint Workspace team claims, including co-authoring, automatic merging, and differential sync. Just recently I had a chance to see a live demo of SharePoint 2010, and it amazed me how easy it was to pool data from business applications into SharePoint. But what impressed me even more was how you can now pull that data into the SharePoint Workspace application as well. Thus, you have information in a SQL database that can be pulled quickly and easily into a SharePoint site (and it becomes linked so that you can edit that data from the site), then synchronized with a SharePoint Workspace as an offline resource while on the go (but one that you can edit and resync later on). Truly impressive.

In support of the new release, Microsoft started a new SharePoint Workspace blog, where you can keep up with all the changes and new features and get tips and tricks on using SharePoint Workspace to the fullest. Of course, my blog will continue to share the key findings from both Microsoft's resources and from my own work with SharePoint.

Follow J. Peter Bruzzese on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JPBruzzese.

This story, "SharePoint Workspace: The renamed Groove has gotten groovier," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in SharePoint and Windows at InfoWorld.com.

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bjinks 5-Nov-09 9:50am
Peter, I was wondering how you felt SharePoint Workspace compared with Colligo Contributor for SharePoint. SharePoint Workspace works a lot like the Colligo Contributor Client interface (http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/contributor_client.asp), which is an interface - lanched in 2006 - designed for offline scenarios. You also mentioned a couple of other scenarios which Colligo has developed specific interface for: 1) Network file share replacement: The Contributor File Manager (http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/contributor_file_manager.asp) enables users to interact with SharePoint structure (i.e. right click to set properties, and checkin/check out) and content (files and list items) right within Windows Explorer. Much more like Network file shares than a standalone client. 2) Exchange Public Folders replacement: The Contributor Add-In for Outlook (http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/contributor_add-in.asp) links folders in the Outlook folder tree with SharePoint document libraries and lists. Users can drag and drop emails and attachments into SharePoint directly from within Outlook. Email properties (To:, From: etc.) are extracted to SharePoint metadata. You can even view SharePoint contetn offline in Outlook... Just like Exchange Public Folders. Sorry for the ad here, but sometime smaller companies need to cut through and show what they are doing. SharePoint Workspace may be new, but it's not unique in providing this capability. Barry Jinks, Founder & CEO, Colligo Networks, Inc. www.colligo.com
sbc 10-Nov-09 4:41am
A feature that is frequently overlooked is the security mechanisms that Groove (SP Workspace 2010) provides for storage and communications. Groove has certifiable (FIPS-140) security that benefits the mobile user. S.B. Chatterjee Microsoft MVP Groove *Groove Security Architecture - http://bit.ly/3Qxi24
ashok hingorani 11-Nov-09 12:30am
having worked with groove for 8 years now, we see more thah the surface - the thing about groove workspaces is that it is much much more than an offline client for sharepoint (Colligo) - it would be hell for 5 people to collaborate on a 50MB CAD drawing directy off sharepoint - speed bandwith time - with groove you can also work on the LAN / offline and update sharepoint only with the final version - for a steel company in dubai each project may involve 1.5 GiG of documents to be shared across 3 locations - happens efficiently with groove even if internet connections break sometimes as the user does not have to concern himself with uploads and downloads etc. brgds
ashok hingorani 11-Nov-09 12:32am
another aspect most people do not see of Groove is that it is a programmable platform (not just a static too) and data can be easily moved between backend systems, groove <> SP and vice versa - you can add simple workflows to your groove spaces where SP woud be overkill, just with a little scripting - an example of such a workflow is posted by me on codeplex brgds

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