What to watch for when making a place for your documents.
Once you’re setup Office Live Workspace you have to create one or more workspaces to put documents in.
Before creating a workspace it’s worth keeping in mind a big limitation of Office Live Workspaces – sharing permissions are only available at the workspace level, not individual files within a workspace. That means everyone you let into a workspace can see all the files in it. This is a limitation shared with Office Web Apps where access permissions are at the folder level.
To create a new workspace, click on the green “Create a Workspace now” button.
As already mentioned and as shown in the above screenshot you can create workspace for various purposes. Select the option “Blank Workspace”.
Here you can define a workspace name and description. We’ll retain the default name “Workspace1” for this example but it’s better to give it another name even if it’s “My Stuff”
Add Documents to Workspace
You can either follow the step by step process given to add documents or directly click the “Add Documents” button. I clicked My Workspaces | Workspace 1 | Add Documents button and added a Word document and a PowerPoint presentation from my computer.
If you hover over the documents you uploaded you will get option to View, Open or Rename the file (see below screenshot). To open the files in the respective application for example to open the Word document in MS Word you have to validate you email id and password which you used for creating the Workspace account.
Once you validate, the file will open in the respective application, you can make changes to it and save it. The changes will be updated and the file will be saved in the workspace location.
If you choose the “View” option then the file will open in the browser itself and you will have option to edit, rename, share or write comments about the document.
Again if you wish to edit the file then by default it will be opened in the respective Office application and you can make changes and save the file.
Sharing an Office Live Workspace
You can either share the documents in your workspace or share a view of your computer screen.
When you choose the option to share the workspace you will be asked to enter the email ids of the people you want to edit or view your files (see below screenshot). Based on the options you enter, permission will be given to access the files. Once the email ids are given by clicking the ‘Send’ button an email invitation will be sent to the recipients to access your workspace.
You can revoke the share permission or even edit the options anytime. One notable drawback of this feature is that you cannot share individual files within the workspace. Once you share a workspace then by default all the files within that workspace will be exposed to the shared person.
If others have shared their workspace with you then you can view it in your workspace under the option “Shared With Me”.
To share your screen you have to install Microsoft SharedView. This enables you to share your desktop or an application in real-time with others. When you choose this option under the Share menu if you already don’t have this software then you will be prompted to install this automatically. SharedView is another example of an orphaned Microsoft technology that seems to have been forgotten, even by other Microsoft staff working in the screen sharing area.
Tip: the latest versions of Skype for Windows and Mac include good screen sharing features plus webcam and voice support that are much easier to use than MS SharedView.
