How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Live

410 Pages·2007·14.6 MB·English

®
Microsoft
Office Live
Greg Holden
New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon
London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi
San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto
Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as
permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form
or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
0-07-151012-5
The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-148560-0.
All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trade-
marked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringe-
ment of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps.
McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate
training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at
Professional
Want to learn more?
We hope you enjoy this
McGraw-Hill eBook! If
you’d like more information about this book,
its author, or related books and websites,
please click here.
To Zosia and Lucy
About the Author
Greg Holden has written more than 35 books and many articles in the past
decade, many of which discuss new hardware and software, as well as cutting-
edge technologies. Many of Greg’s books address business issues connected
with the Internet and eBay. His book How to Do Everything with Your eBay
Business recently went into its second edition. Previous books for McGraw-Hill
include Secrets of the eBay Millionaires and Fundraising with eBay. Greg is a
columnist for AuctionBytes (www.auctionbytes.com) and he has written for such
publications as Entrepreneur and Inc. magazine.
Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use.
For more information about this title, click here

Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
PART I The Basics: Getting Your Home Office in Order
CHAPTER 1 Establishing Business Objectives for Moving
to Office Live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Office Live: The Big Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Why Do You Need “Software as a Service?” . . . . . . . . . . 6
Why Should I Consider Moving My Office Online? . . . . 8
Creating a Business Web Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Your External Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Going Live with E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Creating Shared Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Collaborating on Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Better Communication Between Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Scheduling Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Improved Collaboration with Business Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Giving Outsiders Access to Your Network . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Giving Customers the Information They Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Where to Find It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
CHAPTER 2 Choosing the Office Live Version That’s Right for You . . . . . . 25
Before You Sign Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
What’s in a Name? Plenty! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Putting the “Tact” in Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Minding Your Legal Ps and Qs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Getting the Business Equipment You Need . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Building a Graphic Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Why Host Any Site with Office Live? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Office Live Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Easy Web Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Setting Up E-Mail Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
v
vi How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Live
Data Storage Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Analyzing Web Site Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Setting Up Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Premium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Accessing Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
What You Need to Get Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Hardware Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Software Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Choosing the Business Data You Want to Share . . . . . . . . 46
Where to Find It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
CHAPTER 3 Creating a Fully Functional Business Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Drawing Up a Plan for Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
What Do You Want to Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Who Do You Want to Reach? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Include the “Must-Have” Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Follow the Web Site Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Signing Up with Office Live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Getting a Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Transferring an Existing Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Designing Your Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Office Live’s Default Site Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Drawing Your Own Site Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Working with the Page Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Picking a Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Choosing a Look and Feel with the Site Designer . . . . . . 66
Adding New Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Adding Content to Your Office Live Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Content Zones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Where to Find It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
CHAPTER 4 Communicating with the Outside World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Creating an E-Mail Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Configuring E-Mail Service for Your Organization . . . . . 83
Accessing Your Mailbox as a Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Managing Your E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Participating in the Office Live Community . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Accessing the Office Live Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Marketing Your Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Getting Found by the Search Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Where to Find It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Contents vi
PART II Collaborating and Communicating with Business Partners
CHAPTER 5 Creating Shared Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Getting Started with Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Understanding Basic Terms and Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Planning Shared Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Creating a New Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Choosing Collaboration Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Giving Users Access to Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Sharing Information with a Document Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Customizing the Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Adding Web Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Working with Web Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Best Practices for Working with Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Uploading Your Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Protecting Your Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Where to Find It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
CHAPTER 6 Giving Your Employees Access to Your Workspaces . . . . . . . . 135
Working with Office Live Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Getting Started with Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Steering Through Shared Applications
with the Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Editing Projects and Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Managing Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Using Applications to Manage Your Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Working with the Jobs and Hiring Application . . . . . . . . . 145
Creating an Employee Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Managing Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Creating a Shared Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Managing Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Tracking Expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Estimates and Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Where to Find It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
CHAPTER 7 Opening Your Business to Vendors and Customers . . . . . . . . 155
Creating a Customer Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Customizing Workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Exploring the Project Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Working with the Document Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Creating a Discussion Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Creating a Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Collaborating with Vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Project Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Adding Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
How to Do It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
viii How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Live
PART III Working with Business Applications
CHAPTER 8 Managing Business Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Getting Started with Project Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Component Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Setting Up a Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Setting Up an Alert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Delegating Tasks to Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Tracking Project Issues and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Recording Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Setting Up Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Getting Specific About Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
How to Do It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
CHAPTER 9 Tracking Assets and Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Working with the Products List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Adding New Inventory Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Customizing the List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Tracking Inventory with a Datasheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Viewing Data in an Access Web Datasheet . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Tracking Company Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Tracking Business Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Tracking and Exporting Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Exporting Data from a Datasheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
How to Do It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
CHAPTER 10 Creating and Customizing Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . 217
Working with the Office Live Premium Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Exploring the Office Live Premium Interface . . . . . . . . . . 219
Working with Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Working with SharePoint Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Getting Started with SharePoint Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Editing Your Office Live Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Creating a New Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Copying an Existing Application with Office Live . . . . . . 231
Creating a New Blank Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Creating a New Application with Office
Live Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Customizing Your Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Creating an Office Live Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Open Your Site and Create Your Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Configuring the Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243