2007 Microsoft Office System Inside Out
Edited By John Pierce
The expert authors of this book have decades of experience among them. Each author has contributed essential chapters into this single-volume compilation: Jim Boyce (Outlook 2007), Jeff Conrad (Access 2007), Mark Dodge (Excel 2007), Stephanie Krieger (Advanced Documents), Mary Millhollon and Katherine Murray (Word 2007), S.E. Slack (PowerPoint 2007), Craig Stinson (Excel 2007), and John Viescas (Access 2007).
Contributing Editor, John Pierce, is a former writer and editor for Microsoft Corporation. He is the author of Microsoft Office Access 2003 Inside Track and Microsoft Small Business Kit.
To learn more about other books on the 2007 Microsoft Office system, visit Microsoft Press.
In this article
Workspaces are at the center of the capabilities that Microsoft Office Groove 2007 provides. Workspaces have members — a virtual team of people involved in a project or members of an organization's finance or marketing department, for example — as well as tools that members use to work together. In this article, you'll learn how to create a standard Groove workspace and how to invite and manage workspace members.
Create a Groove workspace
When you need to create and start setting up a workspace in Groove, click the New Workspace link at the top of the Workspaces area on the Launchbar. You then enter a name and specify the type of workspace you're creating. You might also select a workspace template.
Here are the steps to follow to create a standard workspace in Groove 2007:
- On the Launchbar, click New Workspace. You can also use the New command on the File menu on the Launchbar.
- In the Create New Workspace dialog box, as shown in Figure 1, select the Standard option.
Figure 1 Create New Workspace dialog box.
- Type a name for the workspace, and then click OK.
Tip The descriptions of the standard workspace and the file-sharing workspace provide a sense about the work you can do in Groove.
For a standard workspace, after you click OK in the Create New Workspace dialog box, you'll see the Groove Workspace Explorer, shown in Figure 2. The Workspace Explorer provides access to workspace tools (the Files tool and the Discussion tool are included by default), as well as to commands you can use to invite people to join the workspace, send messages to other workspace members, manage workspace properties, and change how you view the information that a workspace contains. After reviewing the Workspace Explorer for only a brief period of time, you can begin to see how it ties into and builds on the work that you perform using the Launchbar.
Figure 2 The Workspace Explorer for a standard workspace provides access to tools, shared files, and workspace members.
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Invite workspace members and assign member roles
Someone needs to create a workspace, of course, and then invite people (and possibly other computers that the creator of the workspace uses) to become members of that workspace. Each person who becomes a member of a Groove workspace is assigned a role. The individual who creates the workspace has the Manager role by default. Other members of a workspace can be designated workspace managers as well or be assigned the Participant or Guest role.
Each role has standard permissions that affect the type of work a member can do in a workspace. Managers, for example, can do the following:
- Edit files
- Delete files
- Delete the entire workspace
- Invite members
- Remove members
- Add or delete tools
- Cancel outstanding invitations
Members assigned to the Participant role can, by default, add tools to a workspace and invite others to join. Individuals assigned to the Guest role cannot perform any of these functions by default. The Guest role should be assigned to members who need to review the workspace from time to time to check on progress but who are not actively engaged in the proceedings or projects the workspace supports.
Workspace managers can assign a member to a different role after the member has joined the workspace. Managers can also change the permissions associated with a specific role.
Here are the steps you follow to invite someone who is already a Groove user to join a workspace:
- In the Workspace Members pane, under Invite To Workspace, enter the name or e-mail address of the person you want to invite to this workspace, as shown here, and then click Go.
- To send an invitation to more than one person, click More or Add More.
- In the Add Recipients dialog box, enter the name or e-mail address of the person you want to invite, and then click Add To List. You can repeat this step to include additional people in the invitation.
- In the Add Recipients dialog box, click OK.
- In the Send Invitation dialog box, shown next, select a role for the invitee, and type a message if you'd like.
- If you want a confirmation that the person has accepted the invitation, select the Require Acceptance Confirmation check box.
- Click Invite.
You can see whether the person accepts your invitation by monitoring Groove alerts.
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Use your Groove account on a second computer
When you use your Groove account on another computer, you are essentially inviting the other computer to join the workspace. To accomplish this, you need to place a copy of the file that contains your Groove account information on the other computer. After you install Groove on the other computer, all you need to do is double-click your account file, and Groove takes it from there. The information in the workspaces you belong to will be downloaded to the other computer, for example, and you'll see your same list of contacts.
Figure 3 shows the dialog box you use to save your Groove account file. You can open this dialog box by clicking Invite My Other Computers on the Options menu on the Launchbar. The dialog box also provides clear instructions for the steps you need to take.
Figure 3 You can easily set up an account file for use on another computer using this dialog box.
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Know when members are present and accounted for
The Workspace Members pane in the Workspace Explorer lists the names of the members of a workspace and indicates the status of each member.
Note To show or hide the Workspace Members pane, on the View menu, point to Show/Hide, and then click Members.
The status of a workspace member can be one of the following:
- In Workspace Indicates members who currently have the workspace open.
- Navigating Together Indicates members who currently have the workspace open and have enabled the Navigate Together feature.
- Online Indicates members who are currently online but don't have this workspace open.
- Idle Lists members who are currently online but have not performed activities at their computer for at least the past 15 minutes.
- Offline Indicates members who are currently offline.
- Suspended Indicates members whose workspace data is no longer being synchronized.
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