The New World of Work

In May 2005, as part of the groundwork Microsoft laid for building interest and momentum for the 2007 Office system, Bill Gates published a memo titled “The New World of Work.” In the memo, which was distributed to corporate executives, business decision makers, and other Microsoft customers (and is available on Microsoft’s Web site at www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2005/05–19newworldofwork.mspx), Gates wrote about how software evolved to support the need for information workers to communicate, collaborate, and have access to data. The challenge for the future, Gates said, was “less about getting access to the information people need, and more about making sense of the information they have-giving them the ability to focus, prioritize, and apply their expertise, visualize and understand key data, and reduce the amount of time they spend dealing with the complexity of an information-rich environment.”

Okay. If you bought this book, or are right now browsing through it at your local bookstore, the odds are that you’re less interested in Bill Gates’s theories of the modern workforce than in understanding how you can get your own work done with the various Microsoft Office programs. If that’s the case, feel free to skip to the next major section in this chapter, “The New Office User Interface.” The focus there is on the software itself. But if you don’t mind a little background reading, take about five minutes and see whether you recognize some of the trends that Bill Gates described in his memo. One reason to take the time is to understand why Microsoft and this book emphasize how Microsoft Office system applications work together-the importance of collections of capabilities (sometimes called solutions)-and not only how to work with features one at a time.

In many ways, the 2007 Office system is designed to address the ways in which information workers perform their jobs in this day and age. Its capabilities reflect the needs of a mobile and geographically dispersed workforce and the need for rapid and systematic collaboration. Features added in the 2007 Office release also address the fact that information workers are more involved in business processes and formal workflows and that more people throughout an organization make decisions that require the analysis of data. In the next sections, we’ll look more closely at two of these areas: how the 2007 Office system supports collaboration and its facilitation of business intelligence.

Collaboration Workspaces and Tools

Where we work and who we work with are more varied and flexible than they once were. Software and computing systems enable many workers to access company networks through wireless connectivity, for example, through mobile devices, or remote connections from home. Project teams and workgroups often consist of people who work in different locations, different companies, even different regions and countries. A mobile and geographically dispersed workforce provides businesses and their employees with a number of opportunities. These characteristics also create specific needs for communication, access to information, clear and efficient processes, a visibility to priorities, and easy-to-use systems and tools.

In Part 2 of this book, “Collaboration Essentials,” you can read about Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. If you’re unfamiliar with the SharePoint products and technologies, they’re used to build Web sites and to outfit the sites with tools such as document libraries, lists, announcements, and calendars. A SharePoint site can also provide access to information stored in large data systems.

Microsoft Office system applications, such as Excel, Outlook, and Word, work hand-in-hand with SharePoint sites to provide and facilitate collaborative work as well. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, for example, lets you define a simple workflow that facilitates document reviews. You list the individuals who need to review and approve a document, and each individual is notified in turn when the document becomes available. You can initiate and track document review and approval processes while working within Word 2007. People’s familiarity with Word can help accelerate review cycles without requiring people to learn new tools.

You can also connect Outlook 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services to keep calendars, contacts, tasks, and other information in sync in both applications. And you can make Excel 2007 worksheets and workbooks available through SharePoint Server and control who has access to them. Why is this helpful? Think of the problems created when the “final” project budget is distributed to the team through e-mail. Everyone has a separate copy, which means that everyone can make one more change. A worksheet that contains important or confidential information is more secure, and the information in it more reliable, if a single copy is stored in a common workspace where individual access is controlled.

Microsoft Office Groove 2007, an application added to the 2007 Office system, is also designed for team collaboration. Office Groove 2007 is based on the idea of a work-space that invited members can use. Members can have specific roles as participants or workspace managers, for example. Workspace members can use the messaging capabilities of Groove 2007 to stay in touch and to see whether a member is online or offline. They perform work using a number of workspace tools, everything from a discussion tool to an issue tracker to a sketchpad to customized forms. Groove also takes care of keeping data up-to-date and notifies you when a workspace that you’re a member of contains information you haven’t yet read. Finally, you can set up your Groove account on more than one computer so that you can perform work on your desktop computer when you’re in the office and work with the same files on your laptop while on the road.

You can find more information about Groove in Chapter 6, “Working as a Team in a Microsoft Offic fice Groove Workspace,” and Chapter 7, “Sharing and Communicating Using Microsoft Office Groove.”

Business Intelligence on Your Desktop

To make decisions, you need access to information. You also need the tools to gather and analyze information so that the decisions you make are based on information that’s relevant and current. Those might seem like obvious points, but until recently, the integration and distribution of information that’s required for people working at their desktops to analyze data thoroughly has been anything but easy. Organizations had to incorporate information from data warehouses, enterprise applications, and other data sources. Sales figures might be stored in one system, for example, and current inventory in another.

New capabilities in Excel 2007, including increased spreadsheet capacity (more columns and rows), more intuitive ways to create formulas, enhanced data visualization tools, plus sorting and filtering advances, provide greater support for business intelligence on the desktop.

Of course, Excel can’t provide business intelligence on its own. It needs data to analyze. The new capabilities in Excel are complemented by data connection libraries, a feature in SharePoint Server that simplifies the steps you have to take to find and connect to external data sources. In addition, Excel Services, which helps you create, modify, and share spreadsheets through a Web browser, can provide access to data stored using a product such as Microsoft SQL Server. You can establish a live connection to a data source in Excel 2007 and see metrics and other measures of business performance. The live connection ensures that the data you’re reviewing or submitting in a report is accurate and current.