December 16, 1999

Microsoft Office Server Extensions (OSE) provides easy Web publishing and advanced features for Web users and administrators. However, Office Server Extensions offers more than just easier publishing to the Web. By using OSE, users can collaborate on documents and projects – even if those users work in locations that are miles apart.

The following scenarios illustrate how OSE promotes collaboration in a single organization on an intranet or across organizations connected by an Internet Service Provider-hosted extranet.

Working on a cross-divisional planning team

Steve is a member of a cross-discipline team at a large organization. Steve’s team is working on a proposal for new work processes to be implemented next year. The team meets weekly and has produced several documents that track their progress. Periodically, team members report back to their departments to make sure that the department’s needs are represented at the meetings.

The team is having difficulty organizing all of their ideas and documents. They are also getting comments from their departments in inconsistent formats, so the new information is not easy to incorporate during team meetings.

Steve’s organization uses Microsoft Office 2000, and Steve hears that the IT department has set up a server with Office Server Extensions. He proposes that the team use OSE, and the team agrees to try his idea.

Setting up the Web site

Steve works with his contact in the IT department to set up the collaboration Web site. This process includes the following steps:

1. Steve is given permission to publish to an internal Web site on a server.
2. Steve posts the team’s main working documents to the Web site.
3. The IT department gives the team members permissions to update their documents.
4. The IT department gives the department heads permissions to browse and comment on the documents.

Discussing documents on the Web site

In the next meeting, Steve demonstrates viewing and discussing documents, and then follows up with an e-mail message that includes a hyperlink to the main page of the site. By the next team meeting, several of the team members have discussed the documents online, and the team is able to review the discussion items and resolve several of the issues.

Subscribing to the documents on the Web site

The team members’ department heads subscribe to the planning documents to find out what the team is working on. Sue, the research department head, wants to know the status of the main planning document, so she sets the subscription to notify her weekly. When Sue is notified, she scans the document for new information and adds her ideas to the inline discussion.

Finding documents on the Web site

When Sue is finished with the planning document, she decides to look at another document mentioned by her contact on the team. She follows these steps:

1. Sue opens the OSE Start Page and uses the Browse Web Folders link to look through the site.

   Sue does not find the document she wants (the site has grown quite a bit).

2. Sue goes back to the OSE Start Page and clicks Search Web Folders.
3. Sue types the author’s name and a keyword, and then clicks Search.

   The document that Sue needs appears in the list.

4. Sue opens and reads the new document and adds a discussion item. She subscribes to this document, too, so she can see how the team responds to her idea.

Improving team collaboration

Meanwhile, back on the planning team, things are going well. Because all comments are now inline on the Web, the team can review them very quickly at their meetings. No more scrambling through e-mail to find out who said what, and no more comparing different versions of a document to find out who changed what.

All their discussions happen on the Web, so the team can easily address and incorporate suggestions into their planning. And they can be sure that the latest version of their planning document is right there on the Web.

Working with clients across the country

Kim works at a public relations firm that specializes in helping small businesses. Kim is working on a publicity plan for a small manufacturing business. Because it is a small business, they are trying to keep expenses down. Kim lives two time zones away, and it is too expensive to fly her back and forth just to discuss small changes to the plan.

Setting up a Web site on an extranet

Kim hears about another firm that uses an online service to communicate with clients. She telephones her contact and finds out the specifics. She discovers that her local Internet Service Provider (ISP) hosts Office Server Extensions (OSE) for organizations. Kim’s firm can get a security-enhanced external site for communicating with both internal and external contacts.

The ISP sets up a security-enhanced extranet for Kim’s firm, and gives Kim the permissions to post documents. They also give her client permissions to browse and discuss the documents that Kim posts.

Using the external Web site to exchange information

Now Kim and her client can exchange information as follows:

1. Kim publishes the plans to the new extranet and sends an e-mail message to her client.
2. The client connects to the site and reads through the document.
3. After adding some ideas by using the Discussions toolbar, the client subscribes to the document so that he can be notified when Kim updates the plan.
4. Two hours later, Kim logs on, reads through the discussions, and updates the plan.
5. The client is automatically notified that the document has changed.

Developing a more efficient means of communication

Soon the publicity plan is finished, and Kim can get started on the public relations campaign. Because they saved so much in airplane tickets, Kim is able to increase the budget for the campaign to include one more regional advertisement.

Kim’s firm paid for the extranet, but between the travel expenses and the lost time associated with travel, they came out ahead in the end. They also found a new and better way to communicate with their clients.

Related links

For more information about Office 2000 Server Extensions and how you can use them in your organization, see Using Office with a Web Server in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.

The example companies, organizations, products, people, and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, person, or event is intended or should be inferred.