MS Outlook | Software Testing Fundamentals: Methods and Metrics

In previous versions of SharePoint, Outlook was simply a handy tool for storing local copies of specific types of SharePoint lists, such as contacts, tasks, and calendar lists. It was great for offline access to these types of SharePoint lists, but it did not allow the user to update them locally and then replicate that modification back to the SharePoint server. But the new Outlook 2007 is very different. It is almost as if this version of Outlook is acting as a SharePoint client, besides being a mail client. It brings so many enhancements to SharePoint users, and for that reason, I recommend that even if, for some reason, you choose not to implement Office 2007, you implement Outlook 2007!

MS Outlook 2003

It is definitely possible to use MS Outlook 2003 with SharePoint 2007. However, it will not have all the new and exciting features that Outlook 2007 offers. Below is list of the standard features that Outlook 2003 offers:

q Task lists: Outlook allows the user to download a copy of tasks lists for offline usage. These tasks are read-only and changes cannot be replicated back to the SharePoint server, not even with SharePoint 2007.
q Contact lists: The same thing is true for contact lists. The user can download a read-only copy of a SharePoint contact list, but it cannot be changed in Outlook 2003.
q Calendar lists: Again, same thing is true; you can only download a read-only copy of SharePoint's calendar lists.
q Alerts: With Outlook 2003 you can receive and use incoming alert messages sent by SharePoint. You can also view and manage all your alerts defined in SharePoint.

So, Outlook 2003 is good if you are happy with downloading SharePoint lists as read-only copies. But if you need two-way synchronization, then this Outlook version will not do.

MS Outlook 2007

The best Outlook edition available for SharePoint 2007 implementation is Outlook 2007. It has a number of new and exciting features that relate to SharePoint 2007. Note that with SharePoint 2003 you will not have these extra features, even with Outlook 2007! Below is a list of the features available when you combine Outlook 2007 and SharePoint 2007:

q Task lists: With Outlook 2007, you get full two-way synchronization of task lists in SharePoint. You can view, add, and modify tasks in this list, just like any Outlook task list, and all changes will be replicated back to SharePoint. These tasks will also be displayed along with other Outlook tasks in Calendar view.
q Contact lists: Another list type that can be replicated from Outlook 2007 to SharePoint 2007. Its content can be updated, including adding new contacts or deleting existing contacts. Any changes will be replicated back to SharePoint. Outlook will, by default, search for users also in these replicated SharePoint contact lists, when a user searches for recipient names.
q Calendar lists: Use Outlook 2007 for two-way synchronization with Calendar lists in SharePoint. Any changes to this list in Outlook 2007 will be synchronized back to SharePoint within minutes. The copy of this calendar can also be used as an overlay on top of other Outlook calendars. You can also send HTML-formatted copies of replicated SharePoint calendars with this version of Outlook. See Figure 7-3, which shows a SharePoint calendar named SIS. The calendar has been converted to an HTML-formatted e-mail.

Figure 7-3
q Alerts: With Outlook 2007, you can receive and use incoming alert messages sent by SharePoint.
q InfoPath forms: Send forms created by InfoPath 2007 as e-mail. The recipient will see the form directly, and can fill in the form and then return it. These forms may then be stored in a SharePoint library.
q Offline content: You can download a complete library with documents, images, or forms to an Outlook folder. These downloaded files can be viewed and edited offline. If a document is changed, it will also be stored in the users folder SharePoint Drafts, located in My Documents. The next time this computer goes online, and you open the local copy, SharePoint will ask if you want to upgrade the server copy, that is, the copy stored in the document library in SharePoint.
q Send to: A new feature in all SharePoint 2007 libraries is that you can use Outlook to send a link to a document, image, or form. The recipient will open the document in read-only mode and can then choose to edit the document, if necessary. This is much smarter than sending complete copies of documents, since you will retain just one single copy of the document, and you will not "litter" your mailbox with large mail attachments.
q Workflow integration: e-mails with instructions sent by workflows in SharePoint, for example Approve instructions, can be managed directly in Outlook 2007.
q Record Management: You can forward copies of e-mail directly to SharePoint's Record Management server, where these messages will be stored within a specific record. This requires MS Exchange 2007.
q RSS reader: Outlook 2007 has built-in support for managing Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. This can be used to display all new items in a SharePoint customer list or documents in a project document library. It can also be used to display information in any standard RSS source, such as news from Internet web sites, or virus warnings from antivirus vendors' web sites.

Offline Content

The list above is extensive, and to see how to use some of the most exciting features, you should try the step-by-step instructions in the Try It Out below. As always, it is easiest to explain how it works by using examples. The user Adam is working at the company Filobit; they recently deployed SharePoint 2007 and MS Office 2003 Professional Plus, which includes MS Outlook 2007 and MS InfoPath 2007. Adam uses the SharePoint site SIS a lot, since it contains the information he needs to do his work. Now and then, Adam is away from the office, so he will be off line, and therefore cut off from the SIS site. But by using the new offline feature in Outlook 2007, he will still be able to view both documents and images offline. The Try It Out shows how Adam does this.

Try It Out Download SharePoint Libraries to Outlook

Log on as Adam.
Use Internet Explorer and open the SIS web site, in this example: http://srv1/SiteDirectory/SIS
Open the Shared Documents library, by clicking on its list name in the Quick Launch bar.
Click Actions Connect to Outlook. The first time you do this for a library, Outlook will display a dialog box that ask if you trust this source. Click Yes to continue. If you instead click Advanced, you can define things like the folder name in Outlook, a description, and if you want to follow the default synchronization schedule or not (See Figure 7-4).

Figure 7-4
The list is now displayed in Outlook, under the top folder, SharePoint Lists (see Figure 7-5), and its content is listed. The currently selected document is also listed directly in the Preview Pane, thanks to the new Preview feature in Outlook 2007. To view any of these documents, just select it in the center pane.

Figure 7-5
The user Adam now has the information stored in his Outlook client. Later, when he is offline, he reads some of these documents and decides to update one of them. To do this, Adam doubleclicks on the document and answers Open when asked if he wants to save, open, or cancel it.
The document opens in Word 2007 in Read-only mode. At the top of the document is a statement that says Office Server Document. To modify this document, edit it offline, and save it to the server later, Adam clicks on the Edit Offline button next to that statement.
A dialog box is displayed, informing Adam that a copy of this document will be stored in the SharePoint Drafts folder, which will be created if necessary in Adam's My Document. Any modification Adam does to this document will be stored in that SharePoint Drafts folder. Adam clicks OK, and can now start editing this offline copy.
When Adam is finished with his editing, he saves and closes Word 2007. The document on Adam's local client is now different than the server copy.
The next day, Adam comes to the office. When he gets online with his client, he opens this previously modified document, and then Outlook compares the local copy with the server copy in SharePoint. Since they are different, Outlook now displays a dialog box, asking if he wants to update the server copy (see Figure 7-6). If he clicks Update, all modified documents stored locally in Adam's client will be copied up to the document library on the SharePoint server. Note that if the server copy has been changed during the time Adam has been offline, then Outlook will display another dialog box that informs him about this conflict (see Figure 7-7). If he answers Yes to the question Do you want to view and resolve the conflict in the Document Updates Pane now?, then Word 2007 will start and display the document, including a number of options on how to resolve this conflict (see Figure 7-8).

image from book
Figure 7-6

image from book
Figure 7-7

image from book
Figure 7-8

To summarize, Outlook 2007 allows the user to take information stored in SharePoint libraries offline. This information may also be edited offline and when the user goes online again, he or she will be offered the opportunity to update the server. If there is a conflict, Outlook 2007 will discover this and give the user several options on how to resolve this.

Using RSS in Outlook

The offline functionality described above is excellent. But sometimes, you do not want to make a copy of a complete library, especially if it contains thousands of documents.. This is where RSS comes in handy, since the information listed in a RSS folder is a short description plus a link to the documents in SharePoint, not the documents themselves. To open a document, just click the link. This requires that you be online and have access to the RSS source, the SharePoint library.

The story behind RSS is this: This XML-based protocol was first released in 1999 by Dan Libby of Netscape. At that time, RSS stood for Rich Site Summary. Its purpose was to create an easy way for a program to subscribe to updates from an information source, for example news headlines published by a news site, such as the Washington Post or CNN. The term used here is RSS feed readers (or aggregator), that is, the program that receives the information feed. The RSS release used today is version 2.0, released in 2002, and its abbreviation now stands for Really Simple Syndication. There are actually several versions of RSS available, but the most commonly used is RSS 2.0

Both MS Outlook 2007 and MS Internet Explorer 7.0 have built-in support for RSS 2.0 and can be used as feed readers for any web application that supports RSS 2.0 feeds. Many of the lists and libraries, including News pages, in SharePoint 2007 support RSS feeds, that is, an Outlook 2007 client can set up a RSS feed reader to any SharePoint list. The following steps describe how the user Adam will configure Outlook as a RSS feed reader of the document library Info in the SharePoint site Sales.

Try It Out Use RSS to Display List Content in Outlook

Log on as Adam.
Open the web site that contains the document library you want to use as a RSS source; for example, http://srv1/sitedirectory/sales.
Click on the Info document library. Its content will now be listed.
Click Actions View RSS Feed. This will display a page with info about this RSS feed; that is the source, such as the URL to the feed, and the latest posts in this feed.
Click the link subscribe to this RSS feed at the top of this page. If MS Outlook 2007 was not previously started, it will now start. Next, you will see a dialog box, saying Add this RSS Feed to Outlook? It will show the complete URL address; if you click the Advanced button, it will allow you to configure this RSS Feed, including parameters such as these (see Figure 7-9):

Figure 7-9
1. Feed Name: The name for the folder in Outlook.
2. Delivery Location: The location for the folder in Outlook. By default, all RSS feeds will be collected under the top folder, RSS Feeds.
3. Downloads/Automatic download Enclosures for this feed: Check this box to have enclosures downloaded automatically to the RSS folder in Outlook. This setting will not affect RSS feeds of SharePoint libraries but may be interesting when the RSS feed is a news listing on the Internet.
4. Download/Download the full article as an .html attachment to each item: Check this box if you want the complete posting downloaded to Outlook. If not, only a short description will be downloaded, which will be faster and require less disk space. Note that this setting is not in effect when the RSS feed is a SharePoint library list.
5. Update Limit: This check box is set by default, which makes Outlook's RSS feed reader follow the default download schedule, which is once every hour.
6. Click OK when you are done with this configuration.
Still in the dialog box Add this RSS Feed to Outlook, click Yes to create the feed in Outlook. Immediately, the feed reader will connect to the RSS feed and download all the posts available. In this example, Adam will now see all document names in his new RSS folder in Outlook but not the complete article. To view a document listed in this RSS feed, click View article. That will open the document property web page. To see the document, click its name in the Name field. You can also change RSS posts to include a link directly to the document, as described later in this chapter.
When you are done with this RSS configuration, your web page will still show the RSS configuration link, as described in step 4. Click Back to return to the document library.

You can change an existing RSS feed configuration in Outlook 2007 by opening the Tools menu, then selecting Account Settings. Open the RSS Feeds tab. It will list all existing RSS feeds, and here you can change any of these feeds by selecting them and clicking Change. This will bring up the same configuration dialog box as depicted in Figure 7-9. You can also delete an RSS feed by selecting it and clicking Remove. To create a new feed, click Add, and enter the URL to the RSS source. If you want to change the default folder location in Outlook, click Change Folder, then select another Outlook folder for the RSS feeds. You can also create a new database file that Outlook will use for storing all RSS feeds by clicking New Outlook Data File (see Figure 7-10).

image from book
Figure 7-10

Important

When creating a new Outlook data file, you should choose the option Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst), due to its unlimited size, unless you want to use this PST file later in Outlook XP or earlier editions of Outlook.

All RSS feeds are stored in a local mail database, known as a Personal Store (PST) file. By default, Outlook will create one single PST file that will be used for all information retrieved from SharePoint, including offline synchronization of document libraries, task lists, and RSS feeds. The default size limit for this PST file is referred to as "unlimited," but in reality it is limited to 16 TB (terabytes). The option you have when creating a new PST file is to use the older file format, which is limited to 2 GB. There is no reason to use that older file format, unless you need to copy this PST file to Outlook XP or an older version.

There is a master configuration of RSS for the SharePoint farm, which controls if RSS is available or not. Open the Central Administration tool for SharePoint, switch to Application Management, and click Web application general settings in the SharePoint Web Application Management section. There, you will find RSS Settings, which by default will be enabled. If this setting is disabled, then no list or library will have an RSS configuration setting visible. Each site collection also has its RSS configuration, which controls if RSS is enabled or not in this site collection. Almost the same configuration page is also available for each individual site in that site collection, except that these configuration pages cannot control the overall RSS setting for the complete site collection. The following Try It Out contains the steps to configure RSS for a site collection.

Try It Out Configure RSS Settings for a Site Collection

Log on as Adam.
Open the top site for a site collection; for example, http://srv1.
Click Site Actions Site Settings Modify All Site Settings.
Click the link RSS in the Site Administration. This will display the overall configuration settings for this site collection, plus the current top site (see Figure 7-11). Below are the settings available on this page:

Figure 7-11
1. Allow RSS feeds in this site collection: The default is Yes. This setting will only be visible for the top site in this site collection!
2. Allow RSS feeds in this site: The default is Yes.
3. Copyright: This is an optional text field where you can enter a copyright statement that the RSS feed reader will see.
4. Managing Editor: This is an optional text field where the name for the managing editor of RSS Feeds from this site is listed. The RSS feed reader will be allowed to view this information. The purpose with this field is to inform the RSS feed reader about whom to contact in case there are questions about this RSS.
5. Web Master: Same as for the Managing Editor; this optional text field may be used to inform the RSS feed reader about who the responsible web master is for RSS feeds from this site.
6. Time to Live: This is the preferred synchronization time in minutes for a RSS feed reader that uses any of the lists in this current site as a RSS Feed source. By default, this is set to 60 minutes.
7. Click OK to save and close this configuration page.

Finally, each list and library has its own RSS configuration, which controls if RSS is enabled or not, and what information this RSS feed will send to the feed reader. This is actually the most interesting RSS configuration page, due to all the options it contains. Follow the steps in the Try It Out below to configure the RSS settings for a SharePoint list.

Try It Out Configure RSS Settings for a SharePoint List

Log on as a site owner, and open the site containing the list you want to configure; for example, http://srv1/SiteDirectory/Sales.
Click on the list or library to be configured; for example, the document library named Info.
Click Settings Document Library Settings RSS settings. This will open the RSS configuration page for the library (see Figure 7-12). There you will find these settings. Note that not all of these settings will be displayed for all types of feed readers; for example, the Outlook 2007 feed reader will not display the description, nor the image defined in Figure 7-12.

Figure 7-12
1. Allow RSS feeds for this list: The default is Yes.
2. Truncate multi-line text fields to 256 characters: Default is No.
3. Title: Enter the default name for the RSS feed, to be used by the RSS feed reader.
4. Description: Enter the description for the RSS feed.
5. Image URL: Enter the URL for an image that the feed reader can choose to display or not.
6. Include file enclosures for items in the feed: The default is No. An enclosure is a way to include links to multimedia content to an RSS feed, such as images, MP3 files, or a link to a document. For example, if you want the RSS feed posts of a document library to include a link directly to the document, then you should set this option to Yes.
7. Link RSS items directly to their files: The default is No. This is another way to make the RSS posts contain links to the source document.
8. Columns: Choose which columns are to be listed in the RSS posts, including any custom-made columns for this SharePoint list or library.
9. Item Limit/Maximum items to include: This will set a limit for how many list items this RSS feed will send to its feed reader; the default is 25 items.
10. Item Limit/Maximum days to include: This will set a limit for how old a list item can be; default is 7 days. Older items will not be sent to the feed reader, even if the total number of items does not exceed the maximum number of items to include.
Click OK to save and close this configuration page.

As you have seen, there are a lot of places to configure RSS settings. But how do you force an update instead of waiting for the default schedule for a particular RSS feed? The answer is that you do it the same way that you update anything else in MS Outlook. Press the F9 key. However, this alone will not work with RSS feeds, since the Update Limit setting is set by default on the RSS Advanced configuration page, as mentioned at the beginning of this RSS discussion. You may remember that SharePoint lists are, by default, configured to send updates to the RSS feed reader once every 60 minutes. Uncheck the Update Limit for this RSS feed in Outlook, and then press F9 to force an update.

More Effective Meetings with Outlook and SharePoint

It is hardly a secret that traditional meetings often are ineffective and sometimes just plain boring. Why is that? The main reasons are that the preparations for the meeting are bad, those involved in the actual meeting process have problems keeping to the time schedule, the attendees are not prepared, and there are always some members who forgot to bring their meeting invitation. And to make things worse, after the meeting, it can sometimes be hard to find out about decisions and information given out during the meeting. So, in effect, many attendees feel that many meetings are a waste of time.

How can this be improved? One solution is to use SharePoint to keep track of everything about the meetings. But some things, such as sending meeting invitations and keeping track of people's calendars, are handled better by MS Outlook. Both the 2003 and 2007 versions of MS Outlook are fully integrated with SharePoint's meeting functionality, and they are the preferred way of creating meeting invitations and workspaces at the same time. Your users don't have to learn a completely new way of managing these meetings; everything they know about checking the Outlook calendar status for attendees and resources, managing invitations, and moving meetings, is exactly like it was before. However, there are some new features related to creating a common place to store all the meeting details. This place is known as a meeting workspace.

A meeting workspace is a common team site, built on a specific site template. It has a number of precon-figured lists for storing information such as the meeting agenda, decisions, a list of attendees, and a list of tasks. Just like any other team site, it can be modified to suit your needs for this particular meeting. You can also create a series of meeting workspaces that are connected to each other; this will make it very easy to go back to any previous meeting instance to view its details.

Important

You can use a meeting workspace just as a place to store everything about a meeting, but the best way to use it is to display its content in real time during the meeting, using a video projector or a large monitor. This makes sure that everyone focuses on the same thing.

Another smart move is to enter the decisions and tasks in their lists, and take notes directly in SharePoint during the meeting. This way, all attendees who are still awake will see what is documented and can comment directly if something is wrong.

The following sections list the logical steps for using SharePoint's meeting workspaces for managing meetings and using a video projector during the actual meeting. Later you will see the steps for doing this in MS Outlook and SharePoint. This is what you will need to work with meeting workspaces as described:

Windows SharePoint Services: MOSS will also do fine.
MS Outlook 2007 (or 2003): Earlier Outlook versions are not integrated with SharePoint.
MS Exchange Server 2007 (or 2003): To view calendars of the attendees and resources.

If you don't have MS Outlook and MS Exchange, it is still possible to create meeting workspaces, but it is not anywhere near as easy and effective a process as if you have these programs.

Before the Meeting

In this example, you are the meeting organizer who needs to discuss a new project that will start next week. You have five project members, and all of them must participate in this first meeting:

You create a meeting agenda, including an estimation of how much time each item will take and who will be responsible for it. The total estimated meeting time seems to be about 60 minutes.
Using MS Outlook, you look for a time when all five project members seem to be available.
Using MS Outlook, you also look for a conference room that is equipped with a video projector and a network connection and is available for this meeting.
You create, but do not yet send, the meeting invitation to all project members, plus the conference room, which happens to be a resource mailbox in this case (but a public folder mailbox will also do fine).
Still with the meeting invitation open, you create the meeting workspace in SharePoint.
You add a description of the meeting and then send the invitation to the attendees and the resource mailbox.
Using your calendar, you open the new meeting workspace and start adding the agenda items, the objective, and some documents that will be discussed during the meeting.
All attendees except Bill accept the invitation. Because Bill must be there in order to make decisions, you reschedule this meeting using Outlook. A new invitation is sent out. There is no need to change or update the meeting workspace.
Bill sends you an e-mail saying that he needs to add two items to the agenda. You tell him to use the link in his meeting invitation to open its workspace and add these items. Because Bill is an attendee, he is automatically granted the rights to write and update any list in this workspace.
Everyone (including you) seems satisfied with the meeting preparations so far. Just relax and await the actual meeting.

During the Meeting

It is time for the meeting. You take your laptop to the conference room and connect it to the network to make sure you can open the meeting workspace. Then, you connect your computer to the video projector. Everything is now ready for your meeting:

When all attendees have arrived, you display the meeting workspace using the video projector. You give a quick overview of the meeting workspace so that everyone understands what is displayed.
You point your mouse at the list of meeting objectives described on the workspace and tell the attendees what the meeting is all about.
You point your mouse at the meeting agenda and show the attendees that each item has a title, a description, the name of the person responsible for each item, and finally how much time each item is supposed to take. Make sure that people understand that they must stick to the estimated time or the meeting will take longer than planned, which is something nobody wants.
The first item on the agenda is to greet everyone, welcome them to this meeting, and explain what the meeting is about. You have just done that so you continue with the next item on that list.
The next item is to discuss the project plan. Instead of handing out paper, you open the document that describes this plan: Everyone can see this document now, and you can all start discussing this plan.
You all agree that Bill should be the project leader. This is entered in the Decision list in the meeting workspace.
You go on with the next agenda item. Marina is given the task of ordering new software tools that will be needed during this project. This information is entered in the Task list on the workspace.
Marielle comments on the number of project members. She thinks that it will be hard to meet the deadline with just five people. This comment is entered in a list normally used for announcements.
For each item on the agenda, a number of decisions, delegated tasks, and comments are made; all of these are entered in their respective lists. When the meeting is over (on time because everyone tried to keep to the expected time slot for each agenda item), you will have full documentation of everything important that happened at the meeting.
You end this meeting, reminding all attendees that they can go back to this workspace whenever they need to and read what was said and done.

After the Meeting

Because a meeting normally results in a number of tasks that need to be accomplished in due time, it is interesting to revisit the workspace for some time after the actual meeting. SharePoint stores this information until you actively delete this workspace; if necessary you can reuse this information in later meetings. Following are some typical activities after a meeting:

Marina wants to check some details about the task assigned to her, so she looks at her Outlook calendar to find the booking for that meeting, which contains the link to the meeting workspace.
Because Bill is the project leader, he also wants to see the complete list of tasks and their due date to check if anybody is behind schedule.
The manager for your department says he wants a copy of the meeting minutes. You open the meeting workspace and add the manager as a member of the Visitors SharePoint group, using the built-in feature of SharePoint to send an e-mail to the user who has been granted access to a site. You add some descriptive text in that e-mail and explain that you don't use meeting minutes anymore but instead use SharePoint's workspaces.
Marielle wants to find out who the project members are today. She also uses her Outlook calendar and the link in the booking for this meeting to quickly access that meeting workspace and read its list of attendees.
One important partner wants to view the details from this meeting. Because he does not have any user account on your network, you cannot ask him to open the workspace for this meeting. And because there are no meeting minutes, you have nothing to send him. Instead you start an MS Live Meeting session, sharing your web browser to display the workspace to this partner. This way, you also can be sure that this partner will not see anything other than what is required.

Integrating Outlook and SharePoint

MS Outlook plays a very important role in managing meetings in SharePoint. It is used to send out invitations and to quickly open the meeting workspace before, during, and after the meeting. MS Outlook is also used to create the meeting workspace, although you can create this workspace from within SharePoint, just like any other team site. Remember that a workspace is just an ordinary team site but uses a special meeting site template.

Important

Only MS Outlook 2007 and 2003 are integrated with SharePoint. Previous versions of Outlook cannot create a meeting workspace, nor can they see its properties.

In order to create a meeting workspace, the user needs to be assigned the Create Subsites right on the web site that is the parent of the workspace. All users who have a personal web site (My Site) can create meeting workspaces as subsites in their personal web site. By default, only owners of a site have this right. In other words, team sites you have created and personal sites are locations that you can use to create meeting workspaces. Regardless of where the meeting workspace is created, all users who are invited are automatically assigned the right to join that workspace, even if it is created in a personal workspace. Typically, a project manager (who uses a team site for his project information) will create all related meeting workspaces under that project team site, and other users who just need to create an ad hoc meeting workspace will use their own personal site.

Important

After the workspace site is created, no more meeting workspace or other subsites can be created under that first meeting workspace site!

Managing Integration Features in Outlook

As you can see, Outlook has a lot of features that integrate with WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007. As an administrator, you may want to control the behavior of this integration. All of these features are stored in the Windows registry settings. These settings can be controlled by the deployment tool that comes with the MS Office 2003 Resource Kit or by the Group Policy Objects (GPOs) in Active Directory.

Important

Use the GPO templates Office12.adm and Outlk12.adm to control these SharePoint-related features. See http://tinyurl.com/y3buyq for the MS Office 2003 Resource Kit and more information about using these settings.

The following table lists the key registry entries; all of them are in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Microsoft\Office\12.0 key.

Open table as spreadsheet

Key	Value	Type	Description
`Common\DWS`	`PollingInterval`	`DWORD`	The number of minutes before checking for updates of Document Workspace (default 10, allowed values are 1–999).
`Common\MailSettings`	`DisableSharing Options`	`DWORD`	1 = disable; 0 = enable: Shared Attachments option in Outlook messages.
`Common\Security\Trusted Alert Sources`	`All`	`DWORD`	0 = do not allow; 1 = allow: users to use Outlook to manage all SharePoint alerts (default = 0).
	`AllIntranet`	`DWORD`	0 = disallow; 1 = allow: users to use Outlook to manage alerts from all SharePoint sites within Outlook (default = 0).
	`AllTrusted`	`DWORD`	0 = do not allow; 1 = allow: users to use Outlook to manage alerts from all intranets (default = 1).
`Meetings\Profile`	`EntryUI`	`DWORD`	1 = disable; 0 = enable: Meeting Workspaces button on Outlook meeting requests.
	`ServerUI`	`DWORD`	2 = disable that user can enter values to server list. If so: publish default, disallow others.
	`MRUInternal`	`String`	Set a limit of five servers available for Meeting Workspace sites. See more about this following this table.
`Outlook\Preferences`	`DisallowSTS`	`DWORD`	1 = disable; 0 = enable: the feature of linking SharePoint contacts and events lists with Outlook.
	`STSSyncInterval`	`DWORD`	The number of minutes before the next update process for linked SharePoint contacts and events lists in Outlook (default is 20 minutes). Set any value between 1 and 1430.
`SharePoint Tracking\Name#`	`Name`	`String`	(# = 1-4) The display name of SharePoint site that will be listed in the "Select A Location list."
	`URL`	`String`	The URL of SharePoint site to be listed in the Select a Location list.

The settings for the key SharePointTracking\Name# and the values ServerUI and MRUInternal for the Meetings\Profile key control what options the user sees listed in the Select a location menu when creating the meeting workspace. The default is to show these sites:

q My Site.
q Sites listed in the MRUInternal value.
q Up to five of the most recently used sites listed in the SharePointTracking\Name key.
q Up to five of the most recently used sites. This list is built from cookies stored when users visit a site, where they have the Create Subsite right.
q "Other," which allows the user to enter any SharePoint URL.

Important

You can create up to five SharePointTracking\Name# (#=0-4) entries to have these sites listed for the user when creating the meeting workspace.

The five default meeting workspace templates are listed in the following table.

Open table as spreadsheet

TemplateName	TemplateID
Basic Meeting Workspace	`Mps#0`
Blank Meeting Workspace	`Mps#1`
Decision Meeting Workspace	`Mps#2`
Social Meeting Workspace	`Mps#3`
Multipage Meeting Workspace	`Mps#4`

Meeting Workspace Templates

Just like any other WSS site, meeting workspaces are built on a site template. By default, there are five different meeting workspace templates:

q Basic Meeting Workspace: Contains four lists: Agenda, Attendees, Objectives, and Document Library.
q Blank Meeting Workspace: Contains no lists or Web Parts.
q Decision Meeting Workspace: Contains these lists: Agenda, Objectives, Attendees, Document libraries, Tasks, and Decisions.
q Social Meeting Workspace: Contains three tabs, or pages: Home, Discussions, and Photos. These three pages contain these lists: Attendees, Directions, Things to Bring, Discussions, and Picture Library. You can add new lists to any of these pages. You can also create new pages using the Modify This Workspace link.
q Multipage Meeting Workspace: Contains three pages: Home, Page 1, and Page 2. The Home page contains the following lists on the Home page: Objectives, Attendees, and Agenda. The other pages are empty until you add one or more lists to them. You can also create new pages, using the Modify This Workspace link.

As with team sites' workspaces, you can save any customized meeting workspace as a site template. This makes it available when creating new meeting workspaces in the same site collection. You may recall from previous discussions that a site collection is all the team sites created under a specific top-level team site, including the top-level site itself.

Creating a Meeting Workspace

Creating a meeting workspace is very easy. This process is fully integrated with the Outlook process to send invitations to users. For example, say that you want to create a meeting workspace for yourself, Anna, and Axel. This workspace should use the basic workspace template and have the name Project ALPHA. Because you are the administrator for the IT team site, you will create it under that site. Use the steps in the Try It Out below to do this.

Try It Out Create a Basic Meeting Workspace under IT

Log on as an administrator for the IT team site.
Start MS Outlook and pick a date and time for the meeting with Anna and Axel.
On the Outlook Calendar page, choose New Meeting Request. Enter the attendees, subject, and location like this (see Figure 7-13):

Figure 7-13
1. To: Anna Filippa; Axel Pettersson.
2. Subject: Project ALPHA.
3. Location: Room 302.
4. Description: Welcome to our project meeting!
Normally, you would now click Send, but not this time. Now, you create the meeting workspace! Click the Meeting Workspace button; this opens a new pane at the right of this window (see Figure 7-14).

Figure 7-14

Important
If you don't see the Meeting Workspace button, you are creating an appointment instead of a meeting request. Click the Invite Attendees button to change the type.
The default setting is to create a meeting workspace using the Basic Meeting Workspace template in your personal My Site or the current site (if you are the owner of that site). All this is listed in this workspace pane at the right. If all these parameters are okay, click Create, to create the meeting workspace. If not, click the Change Settings link to open a new form, and you will be able to select another web site or enter a URL path. You will also be able to select another meeting site template in this form, if necessary. Note that if the OK button in this form is grayed out, either the selected site is not available or you do not have the permission to create a subsite. If this is the case, you must create the meeting workspace in another location, as described in the following steps:
1. Pull down the Select a location menu, and choose any of the listed sites. If there are no sites in this menu, then choose Other and enter the URL to the site that will be the parent site for the new meeting workspace. Note that you must have permission to create a site on the location you have selected. For example, enter http://srv1/sitedirec-tory/sis and click OK.
2. If this location is okay, you can now choose the workspace template and language pack. Note that in order to select another language, you must first install that WSS language pack, as described in Chapter 3. For example, select English and Basic Meeting Workspace.
3. Click OK, then Create to create the new workspace. A progress bar is displayed at the top of the pane; this process takes 5–30 seconds, depending on your network. After the workspace is created, you can see that a link has been added in the description of the meeting invitation; its name is taken from the subject for this invitation. Note that the pane gives you some important tips: that all invited attendees will be able to access this site directly after receiving and accepting this meeting invitation. There is also a tip that next step is to open the workspace now, to create the agenda and start adding information to it (see Figure 7-15).
Figure 7-15
The invitation is ready, and the workspace and its link have been created. Click Send to send this invitation to all attendees. They will also see this link, and they will automatically be added as Members to this site. This gives them the right to add agenda items, documents, and tasks. However, they will not be able to add new members to the workspace site.

The meeting is now added to the Outlook calendar. If you double-click to open this meeting, it will display the link to this site in its description. You can also right-click this meeting and select View Meeting Workspace, as Figure 7-16 shows.

image from book
Figure 7-16

Modifying a Meeting Workspace

When you open the new workspace, it displays the four lists: Objectives, Attendees, Agenda, and Document Library. The next logical thing to do is to add information to this workspace, such as the objective and the agenda. Note that you do not need to add attendees, because this list is automatically populated based on the invited users for this meeting. The list also displays each user's status regarding this invitation, for example Accepted, Declined, or No response so far.

Try It Out Modifying a Meeting Workspace

Adding an objective is very simple: Click Add new item under the Objectives list, and type in the objective for the meeting.
Adding items to the agenda is also very simple. Click Add new item under the Agenda list, and enter the following values:
1. Subject: Enter a short description for this agenda item.
2. Owner: Enter who is responsible for this item.
3. Time: Enter how much time this item will take.
4. Notes: Enter a longer description of this item. Note that you can also attach a file to this item using the Attach File button on the headline.
5. Click OK to save and close this form. You can now add the next agenda item the same way.

After doing this for a while, you might want a faster way of adding agenda items. The simplest way is to use the Datasheet view, which will display this list in a table view. To do that, follow these steps:

On the start page for this workspace, click the Agenda link to open this list on its own page.
Click the Actions Edit in Datasheet button.
Enter the values for each item, as if this were an Excel spreadsheet. Note that the user must have Excel 2003 or later installed to have access to the Datasheet view.
When done, click Actions Show in Standard View to see the list in the standard view.

That was an easier method, right? But there are still some things you can do to improve the management of the agenda. For example, you can summarize the total time for this meeting, and you can add a new column that you can use to indicate that an item is completed. Use the following steps to fix these features:

Make sure that you still have the Agenda page open. Click Settings List Settings.
To calculate the total time, you need to change the column type for the Time column. In the Columns section, click Time to open its settings. Note that it is defined as Single line of text. SharePoint cannot summarize text columns, so you must change this to a numeric type:
1. Select Number instead and click OK. This displays a warning: Changing the type of this column may result in a loss of data. Are you sure that you want to change this field from Single line of text to Number? Click OK, and you are taken back to the previous page.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of this page. Click the view All items (which is the default view for this agenda list). You can now see the configuration settings for this view. Scroll down until you see the Totals section. Expand this section, and change the Total setting for the Time column from None to Sum, using the menu.
3. Why not change how the list of agenda items is displayed? Expand the Style section, and then select Shaded, then click OK at the bottom of the page. The view will now display the total time for the meeting with each second line shaded.
The second feature, to create a check box for each item, is also accomplished using Settings List Settings. Scroll down to the Columns section again, and click Create column. Note that you can also do this by clicking Settings Create Column. Enter the following values:
1. Column Name: Done.
2. Column Type: Yes/No (check box).
3. Default Value: No.
4. Click OK to save and close.
5. You want this check box at the beginning of each agenda item, so scroll down to the Views section, and click All Items again. In the Columns section, change the Position from Left setting for the Done column from 6 to 1 and click OK.

This enhanced list is now ready to be used. Note that the Done column is the first column on this list. Also note that the total sum for the Time column is displayed on top of the Time column (see Figure 7-17).

image from book
Figure 7-17

The Done column is not that easy to use in the default view. It is much easier to switch to Datasheet view (Actions image from book Edit in Datasheet), because you can simply check each item as it is completed. Compare Figure 7-18 to Figure 7-17.

image from book
Figure 7-18

Because the Datasheet view is so much easier to see and modify items in, it is the recommended view to use when holding this meeting with the attendees. The smartest thing to do is to create a new view, based on the Datasheet view, and use that view on the start page for this meeting workspace. Use the steps in the following Try It Out to do that.

Try It Out Create a Datasheet View for the Agenda List

Log on as an administrator for the workspace site.
Open the Agenda list on its own page.
At the far end of the headline row is the View menu; click it and select Create View.
Select Datasheet view, and enter the following values on the web form:
1. View Name: Table View.
2. First Sort by the column: ID.
3. Totals section: change Time column from None to Sum.
4. Click OK. The Agenda list is displayed, using the new view. Note that you have the new view listed under Views menu. Click Home at the upper left to open the start page for the workspace.
The next step is to change the default view that the Agenda Web Part list is using: click the arrow to the right of the Agenda Web Part heading, and select Modify Shared Web Part. The configuration pane for the Web Part is displayed.
Use the menu for the Selected View part; change it to the Table View (i.e., the name you supplied in step 4a.). You get a warning that this modification will break any Web Part connections, but this is fine for now. Click OK and then OK again. The new Agenda is displayed using the Datasheet view (see Figure 7-19).

image from book
Figure 7-19

The meeting workspace is starting to look good, but some things are still missing. There is no place to add notes or comments from the meeting, and there is no way to store decisions and tasks created during this meeting. You fix this easily by following the steps in the Try It Out below.

Try It Out Add Extra Features to the Meeting Workspace

You can use any of several standard lists for taking notes (for example, Announcements and Discussions), or you can create your own list from scratch. In this example, you will use the Announcements list. Choose Site Actions Site Settings Site Libraries and Lists Create new content. Click on Announcements, then fill in this information:
1. Name: Meeting Comments.
2. Description: Comments from this meeting instance.
3. Change items into series items: No.
4. Click Create. The new list opens.
Click Home to go back to the start page for this workspace. Note that the new list is automatically added to this page to make it easier to use.

This list is a very handy tool for taking notes and comments directly during the meeting. Another way is to write an MS Word file, but the advantage with the Meeting Comments list is that everyone can see these notes directly without the need to open a document.

The other feature that would be nice to have in this meeting workspace is a place to write down tasks assigned to users. This list does not exist, so you must first create it in the same way as you did the Meeting Comments; the difference is that you should select the list type Tasks instead of Announcements. The next step is to configure this list to send e-mail automatically to users assigned a task:

Click on the Tasks name, to open this list.
Click Settings Lists Settings, then click the Advanced Settings link.
Set Send e-mail when ownership is assigned to Yes.
Click OK to save and close. This list will now send e-mail to the user (or group) assigned a task in this list.

Another type of list that is common for meeting workspaces is Decisions. Create it in the same way you did the Task list, but select the list type Decisions instead. If you add many lists to the workspace, you may need to adjust their position on the page:

Click on Home for the workspace.
Click Site Actions Edit Page. This page opens in edit mode; this displays all existing Web Parts. Note that each Web Part is stored within a rectangular area, known as a Web Part zone. By default, there are three Web Part zones; Left, Middle, and Right.
Locate the Decisions list Web Part. Using the mouse, drag it to the Web Part zone where you want to store it.
Locate the Tasks list Web Part; drag it to a Web Part zone.
To exit this mode, click Exit Edit Mode
Test these two new lists. Click Add new item for the Decision list and for the Tasks list. Make sure they that are listed on the start page for this workspace.

What do you say? Isn't this a very easy, but at the same time powerful, way of organizing all types of information related to meetings, such as meeting comments, agenda, attendees, decisions, and tasks? By adding the lists you need and modifying their columns, you can control what and how information is entered in this workspace, thus making sure nobody forgets about adding important information. It sure beats the traditional meeting minutes!

Managing Workspace Pages

Did you notice that all lists you add to the workspace are immediately displayed on the web page? Compare that to ordinary team sites, where you can choose to add these lists and libraries as links on the Quick Launch bar or not, then later add them as Web Parts to the web page. This choice is not available for workspaces, because they do not have the Quick Launch bar. So for more complex meetings, you may need more than one page for all your lists. This is a very easy task to accomplish with workspaces, but team sites do not have the same functionality. Another difference between workspaces and team sites is that you will automatically create a new list or library when adding list Web Parts in workspaces, whereas in team sites the same operation will create a copy of that list or library. This is demonstrated in the following example.

For example, say that you have a workspace for a project meeting with several lists on the Home page, and you also have a large document library. You discover that this library will make the Home page very long and hard to use, so you decide to create a second page on this workspace and move these documents there, using the steps in the following Try It Out.

Try It Out Add a New Page to a Workspace

Open the workspace Home page.
Click Site Actions Add Pages. Now enter these values:
1. Page Name: Add a short name for this page. It will be displayed next to Home. For example, Docs.
2. Click Add to continue.
The new page opens in edit mode, but the problem is that your document library is stored in the Home page and you want to move it to the second page. Because there is no easy method to move or copy a list or library from one page to another in a workspace, you must do it this way:
1. Drag the Document Library Web Part to the place of your choice on this second page. Its name will be "Document Library1" because this is the second document library created on this workspace and the first was named "Document Library." Remember that adding Web Parts in a workspace will create new libraries instead of copying them, so the new library must have a unique name. This is also clearly stated in the property pane as Create Lists. If the first document library had custom columns, you need to either re-create them in this new document library or create a template from the first library and create this new document library based on that template (if so, click Show All Lists under the Web Part list to see the new template). If you don't do this, you will lose all custom columns when moving the documents to this new library.
2. Click Exit Edit Mode to leave design mode.
3. Go back to the Home page and click the title name for the document library. Pull down the View menu, and select the Explorer view. Click any existing document and press Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C to copy all the documents.
4. Go to the document library on the second page. Click its title name. Switch to the Explorer view. Point the mouse to any free space on that page, and right-click Paste to paste all files. What you have done now is to copy all the files to the new library.
5. When you are absolutely sure that all the files have been copied to the new document library, go back to the Home page. Click the title of the document library. Choose Settings Document Library Settings Delete this document library OK to execute the delete instruction.
Click Home to display this page. Make sure that the old document library is gone. Open the second page. All the files should be visible in this new library, including their custom columns.

Important

You can also make a template of the original document library and include all documents, up to 500 MB in total.

You can move, rename, or delete a page, except for the Home page. To move a page, choose Site Actions image from book Manage Pages. Note that you cannot move the Home page, nor can you move a page to the left of the Home page.

To change the name of an existing page, choose Site Actions image from book Manage Page; SharePoint will now display the Order action. Click the black menu arrow to display a list with different options, as shown in Figure 7-20. Click Settings and enter the new name for the page.

image from book
Figure 7-20

Deleting the page also removes all its content. Because there is no way to undo this operation, make sure that you copy the page's lists before you delete it! Use Manage Page and its menu as depicted in Figure 7-20. Then select Delete. This displays a list of all pages except Home. Select the page to be removed, and click the Delete button at the bottom to remove the page from the workspace. Click OK on the warning page.

Managing a Series of Meetings

It is very common to have a series of meetings. For each of these meetings, it is important to have easy access to the information from previous meetings. Using SharePoint's meeting workspaces, this is a breeze. One of my customers complained that their project meetings were almost too complicated to perform, partly due to their constant need to go back to previous meetings to see things like who was responsible for a specific task or when a certain decision was made. After they started to use SharePoint's meeting workspaces, they told me that all this was now much easier; in fact, their meetings were now both fewer and shorter.

The support for a series of meetings in SharePoint is a very strong feature! This can save you a lot of time and energy, compared to using traditional meeting minutes on paper. It makes it possible to go back and forth between the meeting dates and see everything that happened in them. You can even search all the meeting instances for a given text string. This is default with MOSS, but for WSS the SQL Server has to have the Full-Text Indexing feature activated.

Joining an Existing Meeting

After the first meeting workspace has been created as described previously, you can join, or link, new meeting instances to that first workspace. This creates a new page that looks like an individual workspace, but in fact it is a part of the first workspace, cleverly disguised behind smoke and mirrors. "Behind smoke and mirrors" might not be completely true; you will soon see that the workspace gets one enumerated folder for each meeting instance in this series to store the information from that meeting.

For example, say that the first project meeting you created in the previous example will be followed by a number of other meetings related to that project. Now you need to create the second meeting, and you must make sure to link it to the first meeting workspace instead of creating a completely new one. Follow the steps in the Try It Out below to do this.

Try It Out Link to an Existing Meeting Workspace

Use the Outlook calendar and create a meeting request (anytime after the first meeting will do fine). Enter the following settings:
1. Enter all attendees as recipients of this meeting request. Don't forget to add a room reservation on the same request, if needed.
2. Enter a Subject for this meeting. This will be the instance name of this workspace.
3. Click the Meeting Workspace button.
4. Click "You can also link to an existing workspace," located at the bottom of the right pane.
5. Use the "Link to an existing workspace" pull-down menu in the "Select the workspace" section to select the previous meeting name (Project ALPHA). If you don't see the meeting name, you may have the wrong team site selected. If so, change the site using "Select a location" at the top of this pane.
6. Click OK and then the Link button to create the second meeting instance in this new series.
7. Click Send to send this meeting request to all attendees.
Right-click the meeting in the calendar, and select View Meeting Workspace to open the workspace. Note that it contains exactly the same lists, libraries, and layout as the first workspace. The reason for this is that it is the same workspace. However, all list content for each meeting instance is stored in a separate subfolder to allow each meeting instance to have its own content.
Note that there are now two dates listed in the left pane. To view the content from the first meeting, click the date for that meeting. Using these dates, you can go back and forth to any meeting and view its content. As you later add more meetings to this series, the list of dates will grow.

Managing List Content for a Series of Meetings

The ability to link a series of meetings to the same workspace is a real time-saver. You can easily find any information about an earlier meeting just by clicking a meeting's date. However, sometimes it would be great if the content from one list could be available in any meeting instance. For example, say that you have a list named "Tasks;" it contains a list of actions to be performed, each action's due date, and the name of the person responsible for each action. Assume you have this list on a project meeting workspace; when performing each meeting, you want to see all actions remaining from earlier meetings. To do this, you need to change the list into a "series object," as the next Try It Out describes.

Try It Out Change a List into a Series Object

Open the workspace.
Click the name of the list to be converted to a series object (in this example, Tasks).
Click Settings List Settings, then click Advanced Settings.
Set Change items into series items to Yes.
Click OK, and then click Home to open the start page for this workspace. Notice that the Task list name has the text (Series Items) added.
Test your work by adding an item to the Tasks list. Click Add new item. Add anything you like and click OK. Then select any other meeting date; note that the Tasks list still contains the same items.

In other words, by making a list into "series items," you make it one single list that is shared among all meetings in this series.

This works fine as it is, but sometimes you want to filter the list to prevent it from showing all items. For example, the Tasks list displays all actions, including the ones that have been completed. It would probably be more interesting to see only items that are not completed. This is easily solved by using a view that filters the Status column that the Tasks list contains in this example. The good news is that there already exists such a view for this list, named Active Tasks. You just have to use it as the default view for the Tasks Web Part:

Click the arrow to the far right of the Tasks Web Part, and select Modify Shared Web Part.
In the Selected View pull-down menu, select Active Tasks. Click OK to refresh the page, and click OK to save and close the Web Part configuration setting.
Note that the Tasks list only shows items where Status is not equal to Completed.

Now you have a general idea of how to use lists and views for series of meetings. You have the tools for creating a very powerful and time-saving workspace for meetings.

Tips about Series of Meetings

Adding new meetings to an existing series is easy, but sometimes there is a need to change or manage these meetings. In the following table you get some tips about these situations.

Open table as spreadsheet

Situation	Comment	Solution
You, the meeting organizer, delete an existing meeting request in Outlook that has an associated workspace.	This will make the specific meeting instance in the workspace an orphan. Its data remains in SharePoint, but there is no connection to Outlook. Note that Outlook 2007 (but not 2003) will open the meeting invitation, and mark it as "Canceled." It will also offer the user to send out an e-mail about this meeting being canceled.	Open the workspace. There is a red exclamation mark next to the orphaned meeting date. Click this exclamation mark, and it displays a menu (see Figure 7-21). You can select the option to Move the workspace's data to another existing meeting instance (overwriting any of its content, so make an empty workspace first; see Figures 7-22 and 7-23); to Keep (data remains in the workspace, but no Outlook appointment is associated); or to Delete (this instance of the workspace and all its data is removed).
You want to remove one meeting instance from a series of meetings.	For example, say that you planned one meeting, but it was canceled, and you don't want to move it.	Use the previous technique: Delete the meeting request in Outlook. Open the workspace and its date will have the red exclamation mark. Use its menu to delete the workspace. Instead of deleting the meeting appointment in Outlook, you can also open its properties and click the Remove button in the Meeting Workspace pane.
You want to connect one meeting instance to a new date.	Say that you have an existing meeting instance with lots of data and that you want to associate it with a new meeting request and a new date.	Go to the original meeting request in Outlook. Delete it or remove its workspace link (as described earlier). Create a new meeting request in Outlook. Join the workspace for this series of meetings, but do not add any information to that workspace instance. Open the workspace. Use the menu next to the red exclamation mark for the old meeting date you initially deleted. Select Move and select the new date you just created. This will move all existing information to the new meeting date.

image from book
Figure 7-21

image from book
Figure 7-22

image from book
Figure 7-23

Meetings with Other Users

The procedures described in the preceding sections work very well for internal users who have access to your SharePoint environment and have been invited using Outlook's meeting requests. But sometimes you need to allow other users to view the meeting workspace. This section describes the options you have to handle these situations.

Allowing Additional Internal User Access

Sometimes there will be people in your organization who aren't invited to your meetings but who need to access the meeting workspace. The typical example is a manager who wants to know what you do in these meetings. Before you started using meeting workspaces in SharePoint, he got a copy of the meeting minutes. But now, because you don't have these anymore (and frankly, you don't miss them), you must provide him with this information in another way. The easiest way is to add this manager to the list of users with access to this workspace site; making the manager a member of the Visitors SharePoint group is sufficient to enable him to view and copy all the content of this workspace.

Important

When you have a series of meetings all invited users have Members access (Contributor permissions) to all meeting instances, regardless of when they were invited! There is no way to limit access to just one meeting because the series is sharing the same workspace and, therefore, the same list of users. The same is true when you add additional users; they also have access to all meeting instances. But you can set a unique right for any user to a specific list, or library, using its security settings in Settings Document Library Settings Permissions for this document library. You can also set a specific security setting for an individual list item or document, by using its quick menu option: Manage Permissions.

To add an extra user to an existing meeting workspace without making him or her a meeting attendee, follow the steps in the Try It Out below.

Try It Out Grant Extra Users Access to the Workspace

Open the workspace as an administrator.
Click Site Actions Site Settings.
Click the People and Groups link.
Click the New Add Users button.
Enter the name of the new user to be granted access to this meeting. Grant the user the rights needed (for example, member of the Visitors SharePoint group), enter a message that will be sent to this user and click OK. The user will then get an e-mail with the link to the workspace and a description of the granted permissions.

Another solution would be to manually create meeting minutes from the data in the workspace. One way of making this task easier would be to export the Agenda and Decisions lists to Excel and copy that information into the meeting minutes.

Important

I have not seen any tool that does this automatically, although it may be possible using MS SQL 2005 Reporting Services.

Allowing External User Access

Another common request is to allow people outside your organization access to the information stored in the meeting workspace. The problem here is that these users do not have access to anything inside your network, because they don't have a network user account. Following are some options to handle this situation:

q Create a user account: If you make this external person a member of your network, you could grant him or her access the same way as any internal user, as in the previous example about the manager. This solution will be of interest if this a recurring request.
q Create meeting minutes manually: Again, as the previous section discussed, you can manually create a document with the meeting minutes. This is acceptable for a one-time request with a limited amount of data in the workspace.
q Use MS Office Live Meeting: This program is designed to allow anyone with an Internet connection to see and participate in any meeting, not only SharePoint's meeting workspaces. One way of using this program is to invite the external user ahead of time to join the Live Meeting. You can also allow a user who has not previously been invited to the Live Meeting session to simply join it at the time it starts by displaying the workspace on the MS Live Meeting panel and sending the user this URL link in an e-mail. Either way, you can give this user real-time access to the meeting and allow him or her to participate and discuss matters like any attendee of this meeting.

The last option may also be of interest for internal users, when they need to attend meetings while working from home or from an Internet café when on vacation.

Important

For more information about MS Office Live Meeting, visit http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010909711033.aspx.