MS OneNote

Another really exciting application that also integrates with SharePoint is MS OneNote. This is a program for taking notes in a very informal structure, much like when you scribble with a pen and paper. In fact, OneNote is great on any computer, but it is fantastic when used on a Tablet-PC-based laptop, since that will allow you to use a pen to write your notes, including drawings, directly on the screen (see Figure 7-24).

Figure 7-24

MS OneNote was first released in October 2003, together with the MS Office 2003 suite. At that time, it had some integration features with SharePoint 2003 (i.e., SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0). This integration is enhanced in MS OneNote 2007, and with SharePoint 2007. For example, now you can use OneNote to share a notebook with other OneNote users in real time, by storing the notebook in SharePoint. This is very handy if you are using OneNote to take meeting minutes, and you want the other meeting participants to see, and even change, your notes in real time during the meeting.

Sharing Notebooks with SharePoint Sites

MS OneNote 2007 organizes all its information in one or more notebooks, corresponding to a paper-based notebook. Instead of just using it for your own purposes, you can share a notebook with other OneNote users, so they can see your notes directly, and you can also grant these users permission to add information to your notebook. You could use this for things like:

• q Meeting minutes

• q Project discussions

• q Collecting raw information

• q Brainstorming meetings

By default, OneNote will store these notebooks on the local file system - My Documents My Notebook. To make these notebooks available to others you could store them in a SharePoint library. Besides controlling the access to these notebooks, you can also store extra information about the notebook, such as a project number or the meeting name. Since SharePoint 2007 enables a version history for all types of lists and libraries, this could also be used for the notebooks created by OneNote, thus making it possible to view and even revert to a previous version, if necessary. Also other features of SharePoint lists and libraries, such as being an RSS feed, are available for these notebooks. This is an excellent way to make sure that other users know that the notebook has been changed.

To make it easy to configure OneNote to share a notebook, there is a wizard that guides you through these steps, as described in the Try It Out below.

Try It Out Share a OneNote Notebook with SharePoint

1. Log on as a user with permission to create a SharePoint library.

2. On the OneNote menu bar, click the Share menu, then select Create Shared Notebook, or click the File menu, then select New Notebook. This will start a wizard that will guide you through the sharing process.

3. In the New Notebook Wizard you can enter several settings:

   1. Name: Enter a name for this notebook, for example Meeting Minutes.

   2. Color: Select a color for the notebook icon.

   3. From Template: Select a OneNote template, such as Work Notebook.

   4. Click Next to continue this wizard.

4. On the page Who will use this notebook? select Multiple people will share the notebook, then the sub-option: On a server (which is the default setting). Then click Next.

5. On the page Confirm notebook location, in the Path field enter the URL to the SharePoint site containing the library to be used for saving the OneNote notebook. You can also use the Browse button to locate the site.

6. You will now see all available libraries for the site. Select the one where the shared notebook will be stored, for example Shared Documents, then click the Select button.

7. On the Confirm notebook location page, verify that the URL points to the correct library. By default, the wizard will create an e-mail with a link to this location that you can send to the users you want to share this notebook with. Click Create to continue. Note that this process may take several minutes to complete. When it is done, the wizard will open a prepopulated e-mail with the links to this shared notebook. Send this e-mail to all users that you want to share this notebook with.

8. The notebook is now shared. The other users will receive an e-mail that contains the link to the notebook. If they click on the link, their OneNote will start, and connect to that shared notebook. Or the user can start OneNote, click File Open Notebook, then enter the URL to the shared notebook manually, and after a short period, the notebook will be displayed, ready to use.

The access to a shared notebook is controlled by the SharePoint permissions set for the document library, and its notebook folder. Make sure that the permissions granted to the shared notebook are correct. There is no other protection, such as a password, and this is not necessary since SharePoint 2007 provides you will all the detailed security settings you will need for this purpose.

Important 

A change will take a few minutes before it will show up on the other users' OneNote. You can force this replication by right-clicking on the shared notebook icon, and selecting Sync this Notebook Now.