Sharing Presentations via Document Libraries and Workspaces

If you have access to a SharePoint server, you can save your presentations on the server in a document library. A document library organizes presentation files and manages their availability to other users. Users can check a presentation file out of a document library for editing, and then check it back in when finished. While a presentation is "out," other users can check out read-only copies but cannot upload any changes. This ensures that two people do not try to make changes at the same time to the same file; there is always one current version, and only one person can edit it at a time.

Note 

Document libraries share entire presentations (or other files); slide libraries, on the other hand, share individual slides. You learn about slide libraries later in this chapter.

There are several advantages to having your presentation files saved in a document library:

• Controlled Access: Access to documents in a document library is controlled by a system administrator, who grants access to users as needed. Individual users and groups of users can have different permissions, such as creating, editing, deleting, and reading.

• Controlled Processing: A document library helps manage the approval process when multiple people need to sign off on a draft. You can have SharePoint send notification e-mails, and require signatures prior to accepting new or changed documents.

• Multiple Access, Single Edit: With a document library, users can check out a document for either viewing or editing. Multiple people can have a document checked out for viewing, but only one person can have it checked out for editing. Because only one person at a time can have the document checked out for editing, you don't have to worry about merging changes back together or overwriting changes made by different people.

• Document History: Because all changes to the file must be checked in via the document library, there is a written history of who had the document and made changes to it. The library can even be set up to require a description of the changes prior to sign off via the approval process.

A SharePoint site can have one or more document libraries and workspaces. A document library typically holds multiple documents, and serves as a more-or-less permanent repository for files. A document workspace, on the other hand, is usually temporary and is created specifically for a certain project. Figure 23.7 shows a document workspace with a single document (a presentation) in it.

Figure 23.7: A SharePoint document workspace.

Creating a Document Workspace

To create a document workspace, follow these steps:

1. From an open presentation, choose Office Publish Create Document Workspace. The Document Management task pane appears.

2. In the Document Workspace Name box, type the name for the workspace. By default it is the same as the presentation name, but you might want to make it more generic if this workspace will be used to hold multiple files.

3. In the Location for New Workspace box, type the path to the SharePoint server. See Figure 23.8.

   
   Figure 23.8: Create a Document Workspace.

4. Click Create.

5. If prompted, enter your username and password to access the SharePoint site.

   Once you save the presentation file to the workspace, the task pane will change as shown in Figure 23.9.

Figure 23.9: The task pane displays the status of the document in the workspace.

Across the top of the task pane in Figure 23.10 are five tabs:

• Status: Reports whether the document is currently up to date with the copy in the document workspace. (At this point it is because no changes have been made yet.)

• Members: Shows who else has access to the presentation in the workspace and what level of access they have. You can click the Add New Members link at the bottom of the pane to allow others to have access.

• Tasks: Displays tasks to be done with this presentation and sign offs needed for approval of this document. Examples of tasks you might create include: Submitted for Sign-off, Submitted for Review, Presented, Updated, and so on. You can create tasks by clicking Add New Task at the bottom of that pane.

• Documents: This tab shows the documents that are currently open in this workspace. It also allows you to get updates to any of the documents that you have opened from there. And you can click Add New Document at the bottom of the pane to add more documents to the workspace from within PowerPoint.

• Links: If any hyperlinks are associated with the workspace, you can access them here.

Figure 23.10: You can choose to update the document workspace's copy of the presentation with any changes you make to it.

Once a presentation has been saved to a document workspace, PowerPoint prompts you to synchronize it with the server every time you open or close it. You can choose to Update Workspace Copy or Don't Update, as shown in Figure 23.10.

Setting Document Workspace Options

You can fine-tune the way document workspaces operate within PowerPoint by configuring the workspace options. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Choose Office PowerPoint Options.

2. Click Advanced.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of the window and click Service Options. The Service Options dialog box opens. See Figure 23.11.

   
   Figure 23.11: Set workspace management options here.

4. In the Document Management Pane section, mark or clear either of the check boxes to determine when the Document Management pane will appear:

   • The document is part of a workspace or SharePoint site.

   • There is important status information regarding the document.

5. Set when update should be retrieved (Always, Sometimes, or Never).

6. Set a time interval for updates in the Get Updates Every ___ Minutes box.

7. Set when a document should be updated on the workspace (Always, Sometimes, or Never).

8. Click OK.

Working with the Server Menu

When you are working with documents that have been saved to a SharePoint server, a Server menu command appears on the Office menu. When you click Server, a menu appears containing commands for working with the document's information stored on the server:

• View Version History: Version History information tells you who has checked in and out this document and worked with it. You can use this list to find out who made changes to the presentation since you last accessed it.

• View Workflow Tasks: Workflow tasks are the things that you need to do with this presentation. They also appear on the Tasks tab in the Document Management task pane.

• Document Management Information: This option opens the Document Management task pane.

• Check Out: This option checks the document out of the workspace, so you have exclusive rights to edit it, as described in the next section.

EXPERT TIP 

An alternative way to save the path to your presentation to a document management server is to choose Office Publish Document Management Server. This option opens a Save As box, with the default location being your network shortcuts. If you have placed a shortcut to your SharePoint server here, you can use that to save your presentations to the server. If you haven't, you will need to fill in the full path at the top of the dialog. This is really the hard way around everything you just learned.

Checking a Presentation Out and In

If multiple people have permission to edit a presentation, it is important that only one person edit it at a time to ensure that everyone's changes get made. Therefore you should check the presentation out of the workspace to edit it.

To check out the presentation file, from the Document Management pane, do one of the following:

• Click the drop-down arrow next to the name of the document and select Check Out from the list.

• Choose Office Server Check Out.

• If you are browsing the SharePoint site via the Web, hover over the name of a presentation so that an arrow appears, and then click the arrow and click Check Out.

Whatever method you go with, you are prompted to check out the presentation as shown in Figure 23.12.

Figure 23.12: Check a file out of the document library or workspace.

When a presentation file has been checked out, every time you save your changes, you are prompted to check the changed document back into the workspace. If you are ready for those changes to become permanent - that is, a part of the master copy stored in the workspace - choose Yes. If you are still experimenting on the local copy and don't want to save your changes to the workspace, click No.

If you choose Yes to check the document back in, a prompt asks you to add a comment describing the changes you made. Be sure to describe what you did in enough detail so that others can understand. You can also mark the Keep the Document Checked Out After Checking in This Version check box so that you can continue to retain the editing rights to the document. This helps keep the copy on the server up to date without relinquishing your editing rights.