Microsoft Excel - Chapter 3

About Document Workspaces

A Document Workspace site is a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site that is centered around one or more documents. Colleagues can easily work together on the document — either by working directly on the Document Workspace copy or by working on their own copy, which they can update periodically with changes that have been saved to the copy on the Document Workspace site.

How to create document workspace:

Typically, you create a Document Workspace when you use e-mail to send a document as a shared attachment. As the sender of the shared attachment, you become the administrator of the Document Workspace, and all the recipients become members of the Document Workspace, where they are granted permission to contribute to the site.
Another common way to create a Document Workspace is to use the Shared Workspace task pane (Tools menu) in a Microsoft Office program. You can also use commands on a Windows SharePoint Services site to create a Document Workspace.

When you create a Document Workspace from a shared attachment, the site carries the same name as the document on which it is based. When you create a Document Workspace from the Shared Workspace task pane or by using commands on a Windows SharePoint Services site, you can specify any name for the site.

Note  When you use the Shared Workspace task pane, you can create Document Workspaces in Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, and Microsoft Office Visio 2003 only.
When you create a Document Workspace, your Office document is stored in a document library in the new Document Workspace, where members can access it by opening it in a Web browser or in a Microsoft Office program.

Because a Document Workspace is a Windows SharePoint Services site, members can use Windows SharePoint Services features, such as using the Tasks list to assign each other to-do items, using the Links list to create hyperlinks to resource material, and storing related or supporting documents in the document library.

When you open the Document Workspace in a Web browser, you can customize it just as you would any Windows SharePoint Services Web site.

Note  Document updating is available only for documents and Single File Web Pages (MHTML) in Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, for documents only in Microsoft Office Visio 2003, and for XML files in Word and Excel.

When you use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Visio to open a local copy of the document on which the Document Workspace is based, the Microsoft Office program periodically gets updates from the Document Workspace and makes them available to you — for example, if other members have been editing their own copy of the document and have saved those changes to the Document Workspace.

If the changes to the workspace copy conflict with changes you've made to your copy, you can choose which copy to keep.

When you are finished editing your copy, you can save your changes to the Document Workspace, where they are available for the other members to incorporate into their copy of the document.

Note  Details of how to merge changes and resolve conflicts between copies of the document differ for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio.

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