Searching for a Shared Virtual Workspace?

In my coaching practice, I am increasingly looking for ways to work with my clients on shared documents and projects online. I am looking to online solutions for two reasons:

1. Information technology allows my customer and me to access documents and piece of work on them collaboratively at whatsoever time. My clients are busy people who demand the flexibility to work on their own schedules.
2. My do includes long-altitude coaching using telephone, IM (Instant Messaging) etc. When we need to piece of work on or exchange documents, PDF, email, and fax are ineffective tools.

We want to be able to set upward an online workspace to work on documents and projects in ane place. We must be able to:

• Post and edit documents online;
• Automatically sync our calendars (esp. Outlook), with online calendars and visa versa;
• Merge online calendars into group calendars to encounter at a glance when every individual is busy/complimentary;
• Post discussion threads;
• Receive e-mail or SMS ('text') alerts whenever any of the start iii functions (documents, calendars, word threads) accept been changed or added to past group members.

Pretty uncomplicated right? You'd think so. I went to the get-go two places that I knew offered some or all of these services: Google & Microsoft. Large disappointment.

Google Groups

The Proficient News
It's gratis. That's difficult to beat. And Google has two other strengths equally a place to become work done: a) it is fully web-based, and b) there is a wealth of various tools.

Being web-based means that not only can y'all store and view documents, discussions, and calendars, only they tin can also all exist edited and shared correct in the browser. No client of any kind required on your computer (other than a web browser); no need to ever download anything unless you want to sync items for work off-line.

A particularly powerful tool is the Forms function available through the Google Spreadsheet. This allows you lot to create a survey that tin can be prepare in a number of different ways and tie it to a spreadsheet that collects the response data. I take used it several times and dearest it. It does not have the power and 'polish' of some of the dedicated online survey offerings (similar those from Constant Contact), but it is secure, flexible, and costless. Google Forms has a basic template collection that allows y'all to set up your survey or questionnaire in a number of attractive ways with minimal pattern fourth dimension.

The wealth of tools bachelor on the Google site is truly impressive. Google Groups, Docs, Agenda, Google Talk (IM), Blogger, Picasa, on and on… But that brings me to…

The Bad News
For such a wealth of tools, the lack of integration floored me. Put just, in that location is almost NO way of using one tool in an integrated style with some other. Desire to list your shared Google Docs in a Google Group? Can't do that. Want to sync your Google Calendars to create a shared group calendar inside Google Groups? Can't do that either. Want to embed a Google Docs spreadsheet in a Google  Docs document? Nope. The list of what you can't do goes on and on.

Recommendation:
Use Google if yous want a gratuitous tool to share work online, but don't expect much. The lack of integration at this signal in the game is frustrating. Information technology is specially odd as Google has on its hands a very powerful collection of private tools. It makes no sense that they aren't ameliorate integrated.

Windows Part Live

The Adept News
Probably the 2 biggest positives with the Microsoft tools are that a) they are pretty tightly integrated with Microsoft Office (especially Office 2007) and b) in that location is much more storage space bachelor (5 GB vs. Google's 100 MB).

If you accept an Office Alive business relationship, which is free, yous can salvage your Role (Word, Excel, etc.) documents directly to your online workspace. There yous tin invite others to view and edit them.

At that place is notification available for most kinds of activeness in an Role Live workspace.

The Bad News
While the various tools are more tightly integrated via the copy of Office you have sitting on your figurer, the net useability is no greater than the Google offering. The weaknesses fall into three areas:

• Anyone accessing documents on your shared workspace must own a copy of MS Office for total editing and integration functionality. This 'Microsoft customer only' restriction is a serious one. There is probably a level of useability with Open Office, but that is nonetheless a far cry from the platform independence of Google Documents.
• There is no way to edit online. This means that if y'all are on the road, yous can't easily get at your documents from an internet café or most smart phones (not that editing Google Documents from a smart phone is any picnic, but at least it can be done).
• The calendar integration is a nightmare. I have spent hours trying to figure out how to set upwardly a agenda on Office Live that syncs with my Outlook calendar. Non merely does that not work, it took me forever to find where my agenda does get when I 'publish' it online (it goes to a site with the address starting calendars.function.microsoft.com, which is non linked to from the rest of the Office Alive site that I can notice). And you can't sync two ways. You can only sync your online calendar to Outlook, not the other style around. That is a serious limitation for a 'live' group workspace.
• Some other weakness is the confused human relationship between Windows Live, Office Live, and Office Live Modest Business. Oh wait – in that location'due south also Microsoft Groove! The distinction between these offerings is unclear, and there doesn't seem to be any integration betwixt Windows Alive (things like Messenger) and Office Live. Further, the distinction between the dissimilar 'Lives' is unclear. At least in Google, what exactly each tool is for is clear, even if they don't play well together.

Conclusion?

The tool I want does non be. Given the huge number of players in this field, and the explosion of involvement in virtual, collaborative learning and working, I'm surprised. I looked at some for-pay sites as well, similar Central Desktop. This certainly does the job better than either Microsoft or Google, but still doesn't practice some of the basic functions (like syncing and merging multiple calendars). Considering that Cardinal Desktop charges a fee I would expect it to accept serious bells and whistles. Not and then. I am bold that somewhere out in that location, living inside some high-cease intranet, there is a proprietary tool that does this, but it certainly isn't available to the rest of us.

So what'south the conclusion? We accept to employ separate tools to cobble together a collaborative virtual piece of work infinite: Microsoft has pretty practiced Office integration (with the glaring exception of the Outlook Calendar), Google has lots of expert split sharing tools, Tungle does a fantastic group calendar, Central Desktop does a decent job simply charges.

If I had to pick i organization, Google'southward is probably the closest. Google is pretty good at syncing calendars in ways that you tin can share, at hosting blogs, storing and editing documents right in the HTML/Web environment, and providing a very basic shared space in Google Groups. No other site offers all of these "in one place". Simply so that'due south the biggest frustration with Google, their'southward isn't 'in one place' either. Yous have to hop from Agenda to Docs to Blogger to Groups and dorsum once more to get a sense of what your group is upward to. How a site could business firm all of these tools separately and not bring them together in one interface is a consummate mystery to me. They even have the interface already – set up a tabbed version of iGoogle and run across what I mean!

Google isn't resting (or rather sitting) on its laurels. In that location is a new sharing project in early evolution chosen Google Wave that allows users to share ideas, files, documents, video and audio in real time (think IM) and asynchronously (think 'posting'). At present if they could integrate a existent group calendar role, and fully editable Google Docs into that, nosotros may be getting somewhere!

I am actually looking forrard to reading other's solutions in the quest for shared virtual workspaces.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/searching-for-a-shared-virtual-workspace.html

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