I’ve been a user of Microsoft Office for a long time. However, I realize I still use these products the way I did years ago – as stand alone programs – instead of integrating them more into my work and family life.
But learning how takes time, you know? So when Mom Central asked me to check out Microsoft Office Live, I thought maybe I’d learn something and find a better way to do things.
Office Live for Small Business
Microsoft Office Live has two sections: Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Microsoft Office Live for Small Business. Microsoft Office Live for Small Business gives you the opportunity to create a small, customizable website and email account. This would be a great way to quickly and cheaply create an online presence. I’ll have to play around with it more before I recommend it to my writing clients though, since I usually find that most people need a blog and not a static website. However, if this is something you may be interested in you can learn more or check out their FAQs or Community and Support.
Why I need Office Live Workspace
What I was interested in was discovering if Microsoft Office Live Workspace would make camping and other trip planning easier. When I go to conferences, I’d forward a slew of documents and email to a special Gmail account I keep for this purpose so I have access to the information and files.
However, there are times you can’t get Internet access even with a smart phone. So, I’d print out a bunch of emails from airlines and hotels for both myself and my family. (One to take along and one to keep at home.) I’d also print out pages of emails from people I was planning to meet up with, and cut and paste the conference lineup into a Word document and print that out, too. Finally, I’d also print out maps if I had to go to several places over the course of one trip. Bottom line: while I believe in hard copy backup, I hated killing a few trees every time I left the house.
I was also frustrated that my husband never knew when I was leaving or when I’d be coming back. The problem was that he’d have a printout of my itinerary at home and wouldn’t have a copy at the office. Maybe I should tattoo it on one of the kids’ tushies?
With a family trip coming up – we’re meeting my sister and her family in San Diego next month – maybe Office Live Workspace could help.
Getting started with Office Live Workspace
First, I signed up with Office Live Workspace using a personal email address. I was glad to see that I didn’t have to create and use an MSN Hotmail account, and that it worked with my personal Gmail account.
Then I started to create a new workspace for my project. Since Office Live Workspace comes with standard documents for different types of projects – events, household, job search, meeting, school, sports teams, and travel – so I didn’t have to create documents on my own.
I picked travel workspaces and started to edit the documents. But first I had to download a few programs. Since I wanted to use Word, it had me install the Windows Live Sign-In Assistant plug in with Office Live Update. Now I can use Microsoft Office programs, such as Office, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with my online workspaces. I liked that Office Live Workspace adapted to how I already work. The update also installed quickly and I was shown online how to use it.
Then I set about setting up my itinerary in the form provided. I changed the name “business trip itinerary” to “San Diego itinerary.” Then I clicked on Edit to add the information. Word opened and I was asked to add a .NET Passport to my XP account. After that quickly uploaded, I started to edit the document in Word. When I wanted to save my changes, I used Save As to update the Office Live Workspace document. (If you use Save initially, you may end up with numerous versions of the same document.)
Creating documents in Office Live Spaces
Sometimes it’s easier to cut and paste an email like a flight itinerary or rental car reservation into a new document than typing the info into a form. So how do you create a new document in Office Live Spaces? Easy! You open up a blank document, then go to Save As. A Save As dialog box will popup. Click on My Network Places under Save in. You should see a folder for your Workspace Office Live documents. Double click on the folder, then go to the project your working on and save. (Don’t forget to create a unique file name, too.)
Making collaboration easy
Sharing the workspace is easy. You just click on the Share icon a the top and put in everyone’s email address into the “editor” or “viewer” spaces. (Editors can change and add to documents and viewers are only able to read them.)
When someone receives this request via email, they need to click on the link that was sent them to go to the workspace and view the documents within it. When they click on the link, they’ll need to sign in with their email address as their user name and to create a password, a bit of a pain my my opinion. Once they’ve done that, they’ll be taken directly to your online workspace so they can view or edit the documents depending on what you’ve allowed them to do.
Now the challenge in doing a trip project is to get family members to contribute documents or add their information to existing ones! Even so, I’m going to continue using Microsoft Office Live Workspace to plan my trips from now on. I know it’ll make life easier for me and I’ll waste less paper using it.
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I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Microsoft Office Live. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.
