Working with Document Workspaces


When you are working alone and updating a public document, you will be fine with the checkout feature that the document library offers. But what do you do when you are working collaboratively with one or more other people, or when you need input from two other colleagues during the development of an updated version of a document? This is clearly not something that can be addressed with the checkout procedure. This is what you use Document Workspaces for. A Document Workspace is a team site that initially contains only one thing: a document copied from another site, usually the parent site.

To create a Document Workspace, you have two options:

  • q Use the quick menu for the document and select Send To image from book Create Document Workspace.

  • q Inside MS Office 2007, display the Document Management pane by clicking the Office button and selecting Server image from book Document Management Information, Then click its fourth icon from the left, the documents tab, to display the documents in this library. Locate the current document (it will be marked with a different color), then select Create Document Workspace from its menu.

When creating a Document Workspace, a copy of this document will be stored in the new workspace. Initially, only the user who created the workspace will have access, so the next step is often to add one or more users to this workspace. Note that even in a Document Workspace the same rules apply; only one user at a time can update a document. If necessary, you can also use the checkout/checkin feature in the workspace.

Why do you need a new site for just one document? Well, it is simple. If the document is so important that you need several people to be able to update it, you will most likely want to have your own private playground for this work. This workspace will also allow the group to share ideas, links, tasks, and maybe other supporting documents by storing all this information in the workspace.

When the document update is done, it should be copied back to the original location. This is taken care of by SharePoint's feature "Publish back to source location." Use the steps in the following Try It Out to create a workspace, update the copy of the document, and finally publish it back to the source location.

Try It Out Work with Document Workspaces

image from book
  1. Log on as an owner of the site containing the library with the document you want to create a Document Workspace for. You must be an owner in order to be able to create the workspace. If you want to enable authors to create Document Workspaces, you must either make them members of the Owner site group or add the right Create Subsites to the SharePoint group Members.

  2. Open the document for editing in MS Word (assuming that it's a Word file).

  3. In the Document Information pane, on the documents tab, locate the currently open document (it will be listed) and using its quick menu, select Create Document Workspace. Accept the option to create it, when asked. Word now automatically switches to the document copy stored in the workspace. The workspace's name is based on the document's title.

  4. Add some more users to the workspace. In the Members Web Part, click on Add new user. Enter the user's name (user account or e-mail address) and set the site group membership. Accept the option to send an e-mail to this user, stating his new rights and where to go to start collaborating on the document. Click OK when you're ready. If you don't send this e-mail to users, you must give them the URL to the workspace in another way. Otherwise, they won't know where to find the workspace.

  5. Use the standard procedure to open, edit, and close the document, using the user accounts that are granted permissions to the workspace. At some point, when you are done with all the editing, it is time to send the updated version back to its original location.

  6. You can either use the Document Information pane/Document tab in MS Office and the quick menu for this document to select Publish back to source location, or go to the Document Workspace, use the quick menu in the document library for the document, and select Send To image from book Publish to Source Location. If you choose to do this from within MS Word, then Word will close the version of the document stored in the workspace and open the same document stored in the source location.

image from book

Note that the Document Workspace will still remain after you have copied the document back to its source location. The reason for this is that you may later be interested in going back to the workspace to see what users were active in developing the new version and view the other information used during that development.



Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration. Windows SharePoint Services 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Software Testing Fundamentals: Methods and Metrics
ISBN: 047143020X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 119

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