Try Microsoft Office Groove 2007
for FREE for 60 days
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Part of the Enterprise Edition of Microsoft Office 2007, and available also as a stand-alone download, Microsoft Office Groove 2007 offers several unique benefits for organisations with a distributed workforce of any size, from the largest enterprises and public sector agencies, down to the individual consultant or contractor:
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Without needing to consult an IT person, easily build a place for documents that need to be shared securely by team members, no matter where those team members are, no matter what time zone they work in, no matter who they work for.
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Easily bring in other team members to view or edit those documents collaboratively and securely, no matter which organisation they belong to.
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Have those documents kept automatically synchronised, even though copies of the documents are distributed on team members' laptops, home PC's or office workstations, and even though some of the team may be offline.
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Work offline, confident that other team members' copies will be updated when you next connect, knowing you will receive any additions or changes they have made also, all automatically.
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Avoid all the version control disadvantages inherent in email file attachments e.g. team members working on outdated versions of documents.
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Easily traverse firewalls when working inside another organisation.
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When finished documents are ready for wider consumption, easily add them to a SharePoint site.
How is it being used?
Microsoft Office Groove 2007 is the ideal tool for
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Bringing together virtual teams
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Holding, distributing and keeping up to date project plans, or continuity plans, that are available online and offline.
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Enabling two or more organisations to work together quickly and securely, without needing to set up expensive and time-consuming infrastructure.
Groove is an especially powerful improvisational tool, a platform for ad hoc collaboration. It offers the ease of access, security and flexibility needed when different organisations must work together in a coordinated way, assembling and acting on information in a hurry. Of course it also has many uses outside crises. For example, Groove is being used by auditors who must work securely on clients' sites and by people who must work on secret projects such as mergers and acquisitions. It's not all hush hush corporate use. Conveyancing is one ideal Groove application, as is inter-hospital radiography.
How do I get my hands on it?
Download the trial version of Groove. Install Groove and create a workspace and add some files you'd like to share with others. A workspace is a collection of your documents and Groove users you wish to share that information with. Find others through a global directory of Groove users. Assign them rights to just view documents, co-edit them or co-manage the workspace. Groove invites Groove users you selected to your workspace. Or you accept or decline invitations to membership in workspaces from others.
Cost?
Two choices.
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Buy the standalone version (about the cost of a dinner for two with a glass of wine each)
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Or instead of buying Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, move up to Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 for slightly less than the standalone cost and you'll also get Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.
And a word of advice. If you are plannng on rolling out less than a thousand users, use the hosted servers from Microsoft at about the cost of a pub lunch with a pint per user, per year.
Sounds like magic. How does it work?
Groove automatically starts up with Windows. It looks for changes to documents you have in your workspaces, or new documents you should have, usually from a server hosted by Microsoft, or one in your organisation. It then sends you just the changes in the documents made by another other member of your workspaces - not entire new versions - and updates those documents automatically. It also transmits any changes you have made to documents while offline. If two or more people make changes to the same document, it highlights the conflict and you communicate with your team members to resolve which changes should be accepted. It shows you which team members are online in your workspace and you usually communicate with Groove's instant messaging.
A health warning
Groove does not scan for viruses or any other malware. Because files in Groove workspaces are encrypted, your organisation's perimeter virus scanning will not work on those files. Your local virus scanning software must be up to date.
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