Microsoft has just released a white paper that describes how different versions of Office programs work together with the 2003 and 2007 versions of SharePoint technologies. Although an overview of the integration features of Microsoft Office 2000 versus Microsoft Office XP with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is provided, the paper’s focus is on the integration features of the Office 2003 Editions versions the 2007 Office Suites with the 2007 SharePoint Products and Technologies. The increasing levels of functional capabilities have been deemed “fair” for Office 2000, “good” for Office XP, “better” for the Office 2003 Editions, and “best” for the 2007 Office Suites in terms of how they work together with SharePoint.
The white paper is about 30+ pages long and has a break down on what level of integration each major version of MS Office provides:
- Office 2000 provides fair level of integration such as simple file operations against and basic interactions with Windows SharePoint Services, allowing users to open and save documents on SharePoint sites from their Office 2000 applications and receive alerts in Outlook 2000.
- Office XP provides a good level of data integration with Windows SharePoint Services, including interactive access to data stored on SharePoint sites, allowing users to export list data to Excel XP and view properties and metadata for files stored on SharePoint sites.
- Office 2003 provides a better level of integration with Windows SharePoint Services, allowing users to create documents, organize team meetings and activities, access and analyze data from SharePoint sites, and use FrontPage 2003 to customize lists or Web Parts on SharePoint sites. Users can also use the data integration between the Office 2003 Editions and Windows SharePoint Services to move data to and from the SharePoint site and create databases linked to data stored on SharePoint sites.
- Office 2007 provides the best level of rich, contextual integration with Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server, allowing users to interact with SharePoint sites without leaving their Office programs and to have two-way synchronization with collaborative information and documents as well as business data stored on SharePoint sites.
A detailed comparison of how the Office 2003 Editions versus the 2007 Office Suites, namely, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 and Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, work with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 will be provided.
The white paper even outlines what happens if you upgrade to Office 2007 and do not upgrade your SharePoint to v3 / 2007, such things as:
- Cannot search files stored in the new 2007 OpenXML-based file formats
- Cannot add users to a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 site using the Address Book button.
Read more, including screenshot examples for each major Office application and compares how integration has improved from 2003 to 2007. Concludes that in order to realize the best user experience with Office and SharePoint integration features, the client programs must be upgraded to a 2007 Microsoft Office Suite, namely, Office Professional Plus 2007 or Office Enterprise 2007 and the server technologies must be upgraded to either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007.Download SharePoint Document: Microsoft Office Programs and SharePoint Products and Technologies Integration – Fair, Good, Better, Best [direct download to SharePoint Document: Microsoft Office Programs and SharePoint Products and Technologies Integration – Fair, Good, Better, Best]
