Access, Word & Excel Integration in Office 365

My first update, so far I have mostly been looking at both Web & Desktop app features with Office 365.

Not a lot of noise has been made about being able to upload Access Databases into Office 365 SharePoint Online as of yet, most of the focus has been drawn to the simpler applications such as Word and Excel. I find this to be quite a useful feature in Office 365. Access database forms are ideal for 365, they are best used for browsing records in database and also adding,
deleting and editing. For example a user can create a web database on Access 2010, create tables, forms, queries and reports. Once this is done, they simply go into options, set the page to automatically display a form or report (or whatever) once opened then go to file->Save & Publish, go to ‘Publish to Access Services’ and type in the URL or the site and a new folder name for it and click publish. I published a mock database onto the ADP site at http://adp.sharepoint.com/TeamSite/ADP%20Data/ which appeared almost instantaneously, I could then browse records in a form that I had produced.

I found this to be an incredibly quick and easy proccess with little effort or even knowledge required. Once displayed on the website it appeared to very visually appealing, looking exactly the same as it it did in Access.

The same can be done similarly with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. However for this Microsoft Sharepoint Workspace needs to be set up properly with Office 365 sharepoint online. Once this is configured properly the user can click save as, click the word/excel button, select wich workspace to upload to then select the subfolder they wish to display the document and click save, the document willt hen be on 365 Team Site or wherever the user chose to upload.

RE

Top 10 Office 365 Features

In an article by Michael Otey, the top 10 features of the service are suggested to be as follows;

  1. Team Sites
  2. Excel Web App
  3. Work Web App
  4. Outlook Web App
  5. OneNote Web App
  6. PowerPoint Web App
  7. Web desing app
  8. Lync 2010
  9. High availability
  10. Browser based access

For the full story, see http://www.sharepointpromag.com/article/office-365/top-ten-features-office-365-136405http://www.sharepointpromag.com/article/office-365/top-ten-features-office-365-136405

Office Web Apps

Office Web Apps is a great way to access your documents from  almost anywhere on almost any device. It also provides a brilliant tool for groups of people to view and edit documents at the same time, removing the need to email back and forth multiple versions of an Excel spreadsheet for example. Everyone can see the most up to date version regardless of their location.  The link below contains a video to show how easy it is to use Office Web Apps on the go.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/RM/ExcelWebApp.aspx?WT.mc_id=AO_enus_eml_excelwebapp

The remote access capabilities that SharePoint Server 2010 and Office Web Apps provide are also of great benefit within educational institutions. From the case study (link below) Herrity says, “Students can connect to resources instantly and easily. Office Web Apps help students accomplish more. They can access applications through the browser, without needing software installed on their home machines. This removes many socio-economic issues.” Now, it does not matter whether students have the latest version of Microsoft Office installed on their home computers. Through the learning gateway, students can quickly and easily make changes within the browser based Office Web Apps, which are covered by the school’s licensing.

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000007260

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a personalised solution for information workers that consolidates personal, team, corporate, and external information, and provides single click access to analytical and collaborative tools. It brings an integrated view of a company’s data resources to an individual’s desktop, providing immediate access to key business information.

This functionality could be used to show the ICT Services Desk’s serviceability times, number of open calls, average time to solve or fix problems, and to overall show how well they are performing as a team etc.

A dashboard is the key delivery vehicle for the Business Intelligence (BI) functionality of Office SharePoint Server 2007. It is an easy to use Web Part page that enables information workers to make use of one another’s knowledge and to more easily access and share information, worksheets, documents, and data.

A dashboard can draw information from multiple data sources and formats, combining complex information into one simple interface. A critical component of delivering the right information in the right format is the consolidation of personal, team, corporate, and external information into a single click viewing portal.

A dashboard also provides the ability for information workers to share and access important information that they need to make intelligent business decisions, regardless of where the workers are located.

What is a SharePoint Workflow?

A workflow is often described as a series of tasks that produce an outcome. A workflow in Microsoft SharePoint Online is the automated movement of documents through a sequence of actions related to a business process. SharePoint offers a three state workflow.

The three state workflow is used to manage business processes that require organisations to track the status of an issue or item through three different states and two transitions between the states. With each transition between states, the workflow assigns a task to a person and sends that person an e-mail alert about the task. When this task is completed, the workflow updates the status of the item and progresses to the next state.

The three state workflow is designed to work with the Issue Tracking list template, but it can be used with any list that is set up to contain a Choice column with three or more values. The values in this Choice column serve as the states that the workflow tracks.

Workflows can streamline the cost and time required to coordinate common business processes, such as project approval or document review, by managing and tracking the human tasks involved with these processes. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd285475.aspx