Office 2010 - Changes in SharePoint Workspace 2010

This article lists changes in Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 since Microsoft Office Groove 2007.

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Changes in SharePoint Workspace 2010 - What’s new

This section highlights new features in SharePoint Workspace 2010 and succeeds Office Groove 2007.

SharePoint integration

  • SharePoint Workspace 2010 enables SharePoint Server 2010 users to create a personal SharePoint workspace, which is a local, synchronized cache of document and list content on a SharePoint site. This feature allows information workers who have access to a SharePoint site to easily access and contribute to SharePoint document libraries and lists from offline locations and when they are working online.

SharePoint Workspace user interface

  • The appearance and behavior of the Fluent user interface (UI) in SharePoint Workspace 2010 is optimized for familiarity to SharePoint users.

Changes in SharePoint Workspace 2010 - What’s changed

This section summarizes the feature changes in SharePoint Workspace 2010.

SharePoint Workspace product

  • The Groove client application is now the Microsoft SharePoint Workspace client application. Like Office Groove 2007, SharePoint Workspace 2010 enables users to create a local, synchronized cache of document content on a SharePoint site. However, in SharePoint Workspace this is achieved by creating a personal, synchronized SharePoint workspace instead of using a Connect tool as in Office Groove 2007. Like Office Groove 2007, SharePoint Workspace 2010 enables users to create Groove workspaces and shared folders. The appearance and behavior of the SharePoint Workspace 2010 user interface is updated for more continuity with SharePoint team spaces.

Tools location

  • The list of tools in SharePoint Workspace 2010 has moved from the horizontal tab arrangement in the lower part of Workspace Explorer to a vertical arrangement on the File tab. Reordering tools by dragging them to a new location in the UI is no longer supported. However, users can now decide to order tools by type or alphabetically. This change makes tools more visible to users.

Groove logon password and smartcard

  • To improve consistency with other Microsoft Office 2010 applications, SharePoint Workspace 2010 has changed its security approach from a Groove-specific logon password and smartcards to Windows logon credentials. Elimination of the Groove-specific logon credentials helps provide a more secure and manageable environment. When users log on to SharePoint Workspace 2010, a message appears indicates that a Groove password or smartcard is no longer required for logging on to Groove and that accounts will be protected by using their Windows logon credentials. This notification is a new feature.

Logon credentials

  • SharePoint Workspace 2010 relies on user credentials from the server operating system instead of a set of SharePoint Workspace 2010 dedicated logon credentials. Due to this change, some logon-related features are removed, as described in Logon-related features.

Workspace Manager

  • Workspace Manager is a feature that gives SharePoint Workspace users a list of all their workspaces. This includes the workspace type, status information, and the last unread date and time. In SharePoint Workspace 2010, the Workspace Manager no longer exists as separate feature because the Launchbar provides comparable functionality.

Changes in SharePoint Workspace 2010 - What’s removed

This section provides information about removed features in SharePoint Workspace 2010. The following Office Groove 2007 capabilities are not supported in SharePoint Workspace 2010, usually because the capability is unnecessary, or to avoid confusion with or duplication of similar functionality that is provided by another application.

Alerts on contacts

  • The option to set an alert on specific SharePoint Workspace contacts to indicate their online presence in a workspace is removed. Alerts that were set on contacts in Microsoft Office Groove 2007 do not appear in SharePoint Workspace 2010. Instead of setting an alert on a contact, SharePoint Workspace 2010 users can use Microsoft Communicator to “tag” the contact.

E-mail invitation

  • Support of the mailto protocol for sending Groove workspace invitations and contact information through e-mail clients other than Microsoft Outlook 2010 is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. The Send e-mail invitations using Microsoft Outlook check box is removed from the Preferences dialog box. Users who have Outlook 2010 as their e-mail client will not be affected by this change. However, users who have other e-mail clients or instant messaging applications must copy the invitation and paste it into the message. Limitations of the mailto protocol prevented it from working correctly for all languages and from providing the internationalization support that users required.

Groove Forms Designer

  • The Groove Forms Designer is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. The Groove Forms Designer functionality is replaced by the Lists tool, which includes a designer capability that lets developers import Microsoft InfoPath 2010 form templates. When Office Groove 2007 users upgrade to SharePoint Workspace 2010, the forms in existing Groove workspaces will work as expected. Application developers must use a Office Groove 2007 client installation to maintain or modify legacy custom forms in existing Groove workspaces.

Groove InfoPath Forms

  • The Groove InfoPath Forms Designer is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. After upgrading, the forms in existing Groove workspaces will work as expected. We recommend that you use Microsoft InfoPath 2010 to edit or create forms. SharePoint Workspace 2010 users can import new forms that are created in InfoPath 2010 into a Groove workspace.

Custom tools

  • The tool set feature is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. SharePoint Workspace users cannot add a custom tool or create custom groupings of tools. In Office Groove 2007, a user could find the Custom Tool option in the Add tool dialog box.

Groove Workspace Explorer contact list

  • The area of the SharePoint Workspace 2010 Workspace Explorer that contains tools and lists and the ability to display a contact list as part of Workspace Explorer is not available. The functionality of working with contacts is otherwise unchanged and users can continue to work with contacts on the Launchbar.

Groove Workspace Explorer workspace list

  • The area of SharePoint Workspace 2010 Workspace Explorer that contains tools and lists and the ability to display a workspace list as part of Workspace Explorer is not available. The functionality of working with a workspace is otherwise unchanged and users can continue to work with workspaces on the Launchbar.

Lite Chat invitations

  • Microsoft Communicator is integrated into Office 2010. Because Communicator supports multiuser chat, support for Lite Chat invitations in SharePoint Workspace 2010 is removed as a redundant feature.

Connect tool

  • SharePoint Workspace enables users to create a local, synchronized cache of document content on a SharePoint site through a personal, synchronized SharePoint workspace. This process replaces the Office Groove 2007 Connect tool. Therefore, the Connect tool is removed.

Navigate Together feature

  • The Navigate Together feature, which can be accessed through the Options menu, is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. By using this feature, one person could navigate through the UI and then have all users who were in Navigate Together mode navigate through the workspace UI together. In SharePoint Workspace 2010, users who need to move through the UI with other users must coordinate directly with the other users during the session, either by telephone or by instant messaging.

Communicator

  • The Windows API-based Microsoft Communicator integration is removed in Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 because Microsoft Office-based integration replaces it. This provides a richer, more robust, and more consistent experience across all Office 2010 applications. Users can see information and actions available on SharePoint Workspace 2010 contacts.

Suspended icon overlay

  • When members are suspended in a Office Groove 2007 workspace, their contact name is marked with a Suspended icon and they are grouped under a Suspended heading in a member's lists. In SharePoint Workspace 2010, the Suspended icon is removed and suspended users are grouped under a Suspended heading only if the Members pane is sorted by status.

Tooltip information about user entering tool

  • In Office Groove 2007, every time that a user enters a tool in any workspace, every user receives a ScreenTip: "<User A> has entered <tool name>". To improve performance and to minimize the distraction that users experience, especially in workspaces with many members, this ScreenTip notification functionality is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. Users can still use the numbered presence indicator on the tool name to see the names of the users in a tool.

Multiple identities

  • In Office Groove 2007, a user could create multiple identities within a single account. This feature was sometimes confusing for users. Therefore, the ability to create multiple identities for an account is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. SharePoint Workspace 2010 supports one account for one identity only. If existing Office Groove 2007 accounts have multiple identities, upon upgrade, those identities are maintained as part of the account. Note that the ability to create multiple accounts is still supported.

Push-to-talk and voice memos

  • Office Groove 2007 provided a button UI that users could click to converse by voice over IP. This functionality was not always effective and rarely used. Therefore, it is removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010. Similarly, Office Groove 2007 voice memos that could be attached to an instant message are removed in SharePoint Workspace 2010.

Ink chat

  • The Office Groove 2007 chat capability provided Ink mode options that let users draw chat entries by dragging with the mouse. Ink mode options were not of prime importance to most users and do not exist in SharePoint Workspace 2010.

Logon-related features

SharePoint Workspace 2010 relies on user credentials from the server operating system instead of a set of SharePoint Workspace 2010 dedicated logon credentials. Because of this change, the following three logon-related features are removed:
  • Manual Fingerprint-Based Logon Credentials Reset - This feature let an administrator use a temporary digital fingerprint to manually authenticate a user before the user resets credentials. We recommend that administrators use the e-mail-based password reset functionality instead.
  • Partial Data Recovery - This capability gave an administrator limited access to SharePoint Workspace data for a user without needing to impersonate the user. This functionality does not exist in SharePoint Workspace 2010 because other methods are available to administrators to recover SharePoint Workspace data for a user. For example, with single sign-on (SSO), when the user or an administrator is logged on they can access the user’s SharePoint Workspace data. If users need to limit access to SharePoint Workspace data, they can choose to configure their operating system to prevent administrators from accessing user DPAPI keys and disabling Groove Account-Access. If users choose to follow this approach and a key is lost, this configuration makes recovering the user SharePoint Workspace data more difficult.
  • Data Recovery Admin - This is a stand-alone client tool that worked together with the Partial Data Recovery feature to recover the space data or to reset a password for a user. Because Partial Data Recovery is removed, the Data Recovery Admin tool is no longer required.

Changes in SharePoint Workspace 2010 - Migration considerations

If you are migrating from Office Groove 2007 to SharePoint Workspace 2010 and you want to maintain legacy custom forms, note that application developers must use a Office Groove 2007 client installation to maintain or modify custom forms in existing Groove workspaces. Forms Designer functionality is replaced by the Lists tool, as mentioned earlier in this article.

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