Microsoft Groove 2007

This blog is about one of the coolest applications to come out of Microsoft to date. It is called Groove and here is what it is.

Groove lets you setup secure work environments called Workspaces. Once you create a Workspace you can invite anyone into it. They will of course need to have Groove installed. Groove can generate the email with links to download a free trial version of Groove for you to send to others. Or if you have someone already in your contact list you just choose their name from a dropdown and they instantly get an Invite notification. Now for the fun part.

Let's talk more about these Workspaces and what they can do. A Standard Workspace is the coolest I have seen so far. It starts off with a Files tool which allows you to add files for sharing. The files sync to the other users and they are able to view them. The person creating the Workspace is set to Manager by default but you can make others the Manager if you like. There are 3 roles, Manager, Participant, and Guest. A Participant can add tools and make basic changes where as a Guest can only view. Below is a list of Tools that can be added and a couple of example of their uses.

• Calendar
  
  • Pretty self explanatory. This lets you setup appointments that others can see. Great for scheduling team or board meetings.
• Discussions
  
  • Kind of like a Forum. You can Add Topics and then Reponses.
• Files
  
  • For sharing multiple files and Folders across the workspace
• Forms
  
  • This one is really cool. You can create forms using a fairly intuitive editor and then publish them across the Workspace. Once that is done users can view and form and fill it out. All information gets stored and is viewable by a "View" which you also create. This is great for a team that needs to collect TPS reports…I mean progress reports or any type of data collection. You could even make Team Blog using the Forms tool.
• InfoPath Forms
  
  • Basically the same as the regular Forms Tool but allows you to import forms designed in InfoPath
• Issue Tracking
  
  • Self explanatory. Lets you setup different issues. It is fairly comprehensive as you can define status levels, categories, priority lists and even attach Files to topics.
• Meetings
  
  • This allows you to have some of the functionality of the different tools on a per meeting basis. You can assign action items, agendas, and a discussion forum and log meeting minutes
• Notepad
  
  • Just a place to jot down notes
• Pictures
  
  • Displays and shares images and digital photo's. This would come in handy for a development team that is reviewing concept sketches or maybe a real estate agency that can list different images for the project
• SharePoint Files
  
  • This synchronizes files with a SharePoint document library or folder.
• Sketchpad
  
  • Self explanatory. You can draw and share visual ideas using a basic graphic editor that used vector based graphics.
• Chess Game
  
  • Yes it even has a Chess game. Now there are no rule so it is not turn based but is a nice if you need to break from the brainstorm and clear the head for a moment.

  Now you can also create a strictly File sharing Workspace that is very much like Windows Explorer but the files are synchronized across the members of the Workspace.
  

  You can also save a Standard Workspace as a template so that you can create new Workspaces that are already populated with the necessary tools
  

  All in all Microsoft Groove is awesome and has a lot of potential for many different uses. Now only if there was a way to access the data stored by a 3rd Party application or web server, that would be the bomb!
  

  For more info and screenshot visit the Microsoft Groove 2007 website
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove
  

  BTW this blog was written in MS OneNote 2007, which rocks as well, and then posted using the Blog functionality of Word 2007 directly to my Blogger account. How cool is that?