Microsoft Groove 2007

Friday, May 18, 2007

4:21 PM

This blog is about one of the coolest
applications to come out of Microsoft to date. 
It is called Groove and here is what it is. 

Groove lets you setup secure work
environments called Workspaces.  Once you
create a Workspace you can invite anyone into it.  They will of course need to have Groove
installed.  Groove can generate the email
with links to download a free trial version of Groove for you to send to
others.  Or if you have someone already in
your contact list you just choose their name from a dropdown and they instantly
get an Invite notification.  Now for the
fun part.

Let's talk more about these Workspaces and
what they can do.  A Standard Workspace
is the coolest I have seen so far.  It
starts off with a Files tool which allows you to add files for sharing.  The files sync to the other users and they
are able to view them.  The person
creating the Workspace is set to Manager by default but you can make others the
Manager if you like.  There are 3 roles,
Manager, Participant, and Guest.  A
Participant can add tools and make basic changes where as a Guest can only
view.    Below is a list of Tools that
can be added and a couple of example of their uses.

·        
Calendar

o    Pretty self explanatory.  This lets you setup appointments that others
can see.  Great for scheduling team or
board meetings.

·        
Discussions

o    Kind of like a Forum.  You can Add Topics and then Reponses.

·        
Files

o    For sharing multiple files and Folders across
the workspace

·        
Forms

o    This one is really cool.  You can create forms using a fairly intuitive
editor and then publish them across the Workspace.  Once that is done users can view and form and
fill it out.  All information gets stored
and is viewable by a "View" which you also create.  This is great for a team that needs to
collect TPS reports…I mean progress reports or any type of data
collection.  You could even make Team
Blog using the Forms tool.

·        
InfoPath
Forms

o    Basically the same as the regular Forms Tool but
allows you to import forms designed in InfoPath

·        
Issue
Tracking

o    Self explanatory.  Lets you setup different issues.  It is fairly comprehensive as you can define
status levels, categories, priority lists and even attach Files to topics.

·        
Meetings

o    This allows you to have some of the functionality
of the different tools on a per meeting basis. 
You can assign action items, agendas, and a discussion forum and log
meeting minutes

·        
Notepad

o    Just a place to jot down notes

·        
Pictures

o    Displays and shares images and digital
photo's.  This would come in handy for a
development team that is reviewing concept sketches or maybe a real estate
agency that can list different images for the project

·        
SharePoint
Files

o    This synchronizes files with a SharePoint
document library or folder. 

·        
Sketchpad

o    Self explanatory.  You can draw and share visual ideas using a
basic graphic editor that used vector based graphics.

·        
Chess
Game

o    Yes it even has a Chess game.  Now there are no rule so it is not turn based
but is a nice if you need to break from the brainstorm and clear the head for a
moment.

Now
you can also create a strictly File sharing Workspace that is very much like
Windows Explorer but the files are synchronized across the members of the
Workspace.

You
can also save a Standard Workspace as a template so that you can create new
Workspaces that are already populated with the necessary tools

All
in all Microsoft Groove is awesome and has a lot of potential for many
different uses.  Now only if there was a
way to access the data stored by a 3rd Party application or web server, that
would be the bomb!

For
more info and screenshot visit the Microsoft Groove 2007 website

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove

BTW
this blog was written in MS OneNote 2007, which rocks as well, and then posted
using the Blog functionality of Word 2007 directly to my Blogger account.  How cool is that?

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