Section 5.1. Getting Started with Excel and SharePoint

5.1. Getting Started with Excel and SharePoint

If you've ever tried to collaborate on a budget, project bid, or other team-oriented workbook in Excel, you know that just putting the . XLS file up on a public server doesn't cut it. Only one person can edit the workbook at a time, and if somebody leaves the file open and goes to lunch , the rest of the team is locked out until you find out who the culprit is and get him to close his session.

Earlier versions of Excel solved this problem with shared workbooks , which let more than one user have a single workbook open for editing. Changes were merged automatically, and conflicting changes could be resolved. That's a start, but it's a file-based system, so there is no way to manage the document's users, notify teammates of changes, assign tasks , or do other team-oriented work.

SharePoint solves this problem through shared workspaces and shared lists. From an Excel perspective, shared workspaces represent a workbook shared with team members ; shared lists are ranges of cells shared through a SharePoint site. Figure 5-1 illustrates the difference.

animal 5-1. Sharing workbooks and parts of workbooks as lists

Before you begin using SharePoint in Excel, you'll need:

• The address of the site assigned to your team. SharePoint organizes sites into separate folders for each team or project. Your SharePoint administrator will probably have set up a server with a top-level site that everyone can view, but to create new workspaces from Excel, you'll need the address of an area where you are allowed to create new subsites.

• The Internet address of your site (optional). Usually the address you get from your administrator will be an intranet address that is, it will be located on your corporate network. However, if you travel or work from home, your administrator may also give you an address that can be accessed over the Internet.

• Your user name and password. This will usually be the same user name and password you use to sign on to the network. However, if you are using SharePoint over the Internet, you may have a new user name or password assigned.

Next, take these preliminary steps from Internet Explorer:

1. Navigate to your SharePoint site and add it to your Favorites folder or create a shortcut on your desktop .

2. If using SharePoint over the Internet, add the Internet site to your Trusted Sites list. From within Internet Explorer, select Tools Internet Options Security, and add the address to the Trusted Sites zone. Dont include the sitename or teamname in the addressjust use the domain (for example, http://www.mycompany.com) .

You're almost ready to start sharing workbooks and lists from Excel using SharePoint. How you do each of those things is different so, first-things-first, let's talk about sharing an Excel workbook by creating a SharePoint workspace.