Offline SharePoint

Well, the numbers are in… and our home town, Vancouver, topped the Economist’s list of the World’s Most Liveable Cites. Vancouver received the top score of 98 in the rankings. Here’s how they arrived at the results:

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle in 140 cities worldwide. Each city is assigned a score for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The categories are compiled and weighted to provide an overall rating of 1–100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal.

Let us know if you are interested in joining Colligo. Currently open positions and instructions on how to contact our HR department are listed on our careers page.

P.S. The view from our office is the banner on this blog

Awhile back I posted about the re-naming of Groove as SharePoint Workspace 2010. During the webinar we did in June introducing version 4.0 of Colligo Contributor, we mentioned SharePoint Workspace again, and this spawned a number of questions from attendees. Recently, I noticed some buzz on Twitter about Colligo’s imminent demise as a result of Groove’s repositioning.

I feel compelled to provide a preliminary response to the questions and comments. Frankly, it’s too early to be doing this as SharePoint Workspace is still in private beta, so no one can talk about the details publicly. And the devil’s in the details, as they say. While we’ve had a chance to play with the code, we are under NDA and cannot talk about it (and rightly so).

I will say one thing, though. As a Gold certified partner and managed partner of Microsoft, we work closely with the Office and SharePoint teams, and have developed some great relationships… including with people on the Groove / SharePoint Workspace team. We are getting our messaging ready for the release of Office 2010. By the time SharePoint Workspace 2010 is released, it will be really clear where Colligo fits in and where SharePoint Workspace fits in.

In fact, we are very excited that Microsoft is going to be raising the awareness of the “SharePoint client” product category – a category that we have been pioneering for almost four years.

While I’m not going to talk further about SharePoint Workspace, I want to provide a few points when you are thinking about Colligo. This should give you some idea what we will be talking about when Office 2010 is released:

1. Colligo Contributor is a platform that supports many SharePoint functions on a users desktop and exposes them through a .NET API. As we evolve our product line, we work to fill in the holes in the MS product offering – to ensure that specific scenarios (such as ECM, or email management, or network file share replacement, or Exchange Public Folder replacement) are supported well by the combination of SharePoint and Colligo Contributor. This is the key to our strategy.
2. In addition to the three standard interfaces (Client, Outlook Add-In, and Windows Explorer File Manager) that we offer today, many customers have developed custom SharePoint client applications using the Contributor SDK, so they can streamline and improve the user experience. This capability will be further enhanced in future releases.
3. The Colligo Contributor run-time engine is highly configurable for the management of metadata and content types. User-defined default metadata and automatic email metadata extraction are a couple of examples. This will be extended to support new capabilities in SharePoint 2010.
4. The Outlook Add-In interface is unique and unlike anything Microsoft offers. It provides a complete SharePoint experience in Outlook, again to fill an unmet need. One of the new capabilities is the ability to manage email attachments in SharePoint; something IT has needed for quite awhile.
5. Again, unique in Contributor is the File Manager, which provides a complete SharePoint experience in Windows Explorer, including the presentation and management of SharePoint metadata, templates, etc. It’s also integrated with Windows desktop applications, such as MS Office, so SharePoint functions can be performed right within the Open and Save As dialogs.
6. Contributor supports (and will continue to support) SharePoint 2003, 2007 (and 2010), as well as Office 2003, 2007 (and 2010). This provides our customers a lot of flexibility as they upgrade Office and SharePoint. In fact, even today many enterprises have still not upgraded to Office 2007. How quickly will they make the transition to Office 2010?
7. Colligo is super light weight and easy to use, with few dependencies.
8. Colligo Offers a sophisticated SharePoint download product, Colligo Reader, to the community completely free of charge. It doesn’t contain “nagware” or ads, either. It’s been downloaded and is being used by hundreds of thousands of people.
9. Thousands of organizations all over the World have deployed Colligo Contributor. It’s a battle hardened product with a feature set that has been honed through many customer deployments.

Notice I didn’t talk at all about offline. Sure, we do it, but Contributor is so much more than that now.

Humbly, we believe we are the leaders in the SharePoint client market today and offer the richest and deepest products and technologies. Others seem to agree with us, too. For example, a recent article in ReadWriteEnterprise proclaimed:

”When it Comes to SharePoint on the Desktop, Colligo Reigns Supreme”

I think we’ve achieved this position because we understand what people want to do with SharePoint. We believe we will continue to lead in the future. But we will do it by complementing, not competing with, SharePoint Workspace 2010.

Finally, I’ve been hearing about the imminent demise of Colligo ever since Groove came out of stealth mode in 2001. We were in the peer to peer space back then, but again our product was completely differentiated and served a different customer. We didn’t die. Then again in 2005 when Microsoft bought Groove, we were going to be dead… Nope, sorry. Then in 2007 when Office 2007 came out and Groove was positioned as the offline client for SharePoint. Nyet. Now again in 2009.

Well, we’re not dead now … in fact we are thriving. I don’t think we will be dead when Office 2010 comes out next year, either. I think it will be good for us… and, heck, who knows what we will build ON TOP of SharePoint Workspace in the future.

Today I received a query from a prospective client regarding our free Colligo Reader for SharePoint product.  The Reader is free for personal (non-commercial) installations, and this particular client was interested in purchasing Reader for commercial use.  This is a fairly common question due to the popularity of the Reader product, so I wanted to answer it here for all the interested parties following our blog.

First, a little background on the Reader.

The Colligo Reader product has been a tremendously successful product for Colligo.  It provides end users with a straightforward way to sync SharePoint content (docs , metadata, lists, views) to their local PC for use when disconnected.  Reader is a light-weight and easy to use.  See http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/reader.asp for more details.

However, the Reader product is targeted for personal use by individuals, and as such does not have the configurability and extensibility required for business users and their deployments.

For commercial use, Colligo has the Contributor Client (Viewer) product, or more commonly known as the “Viewer”.   The Viewer product is essentially the “enterprise” version of Reader with all the benefits of (and support) associated with a commercial grade product.

The Viewer provides the ability to configure various features in the msi package including the storage location, background sync frequency and SharePoint sites to be automatically sync’d.  A full list of the current configuration options is available at: http://support.colligo.com/Lists/Knowledge%20Base/DispForm.aspx?ID=16 and there will be more available with each subsequent release.  The Viewer is also extensible with the Contributor SDK.

Additionally, to upgrade from the Viewer product to the full, 2-way synchronizing Contributor Client, the user simply needs to install the new license key using Help > Install License Key.

To summarize:  The Reader product is free for personal (non-commercial) use.  If your business is looking to deploy one-way SharePoint sync technology, you will want to contact us  about the “Viewer” product.

On June 30 Colligo held a live webinar entitled “Supercharge Your SharePoint Deployment With The New Colligo Contributor 4.0″. Our VP of Development, Dave Foster, gave an extensive demo, which seemed to be very well received judging from the comments. You can view a replay of the webinar, request additional information, and sign up for a free trial of Contributor 4,0 at the webinar resource center.

Colligo Contributor 4.0 is scheduled for release the week of July 13th, 2009. For a list of features, please read the press release.

The webinar spawned a lot of interesting questions. Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming number that attendees posted, we were not able to answer all of them live. So, below are the answers to those questions that didn’t get answered. Please feel free to post comments with additional questions and we will answer them here.

Q: Can you provide some information on how release 4 integrates with SharePoint calendars with custom fields?

A: Like SharePoint libraries and lists, Calendar lists can be synchronized into Contributor’s local cache. Contributor displays Calendars as a line oriented item list and not in a calendar or tabular format. As with other lists Contributor will synchronize the full list definition including any additional fields which have been configured.

Q: Is it also possible to add a File not just a link directly from SharePoint to an email to external recipients?

A: The standard interfaces provided in Contributor enable a simple drag and drop of a file from the Contributor interface into a draft email. This can be attached as a regular file. A new feature in R4 in the Outlook Addin product is the ability to manage attachments. This feature gives an additional method to simply browse to a file in the local cache and add it as either as a file or URL into a draft email. The Colligo Attachment Rules engine, which is used to determine if the attachments must be sent as SharePoint links, uses maximum combined attachment size to limit attachments. This rule engine is an open interface and, using the Contributor SDK, can be customized to any business logic an organization requires including examining the recipient list to determine if there are external addresses.

Q: Does the Explorer interface support CTRL+C and CTRL+V functionality?

A: The File Manager in R4 does not currently support these keyboard commands but we are investigating this feature for future releases.

Q: Does Colligo 4.0 work with Infopath Forms we have developed and does it synchronize them to the server?

A: Yes, Colligo Contributor has support for InfoPath forms, including offline access to form templates. There may be, however, conditions and restrictions which need to be managed depending on your forms and configuration.

Q: Will it be possible to add cascading listboxes (linked listboxes) in the metadata dialog?

A: The standard metadata editor does not support cascading listboxes, however, a custom metadata editor can be developed using the Contributor SDK. Design implications regarding the source of the list data, offline availability, etc. should be considered and further information is available through our developer support program and on our support site.

Q: Does Colligo support default views based on folder content types?

A: Colligo currently supports library and list default views.

Q: Does Colligo support folder level customized “New” buttons?

A: Colligo currently supports the default library “New” button and displays all of the available content types.

Q: Will Colligo 4.0 be a free upgrade or will there be any upgrade cost for existing/recent 3.2 users?

A: That depends on whether your maintenance and support is current. If so, you will likely receive a free upgrade. Colligo will be offering a number of upgrade programs for existing customers which will be announced shortly. Contact your Colligo Sales representative (or email sales@colligo.com) for further information.

Q: In what areas are Colligo v4 stronger than the upcoming Groove-feature in SP-2010?

Q: How do you differentiate yourself from the upcoming SharePoint Workspace release?

Q: With the repositioning of Groove as the ‘Sharepoint Workspace’, how will Colligo provide value above and beyond the features of the ‘new Groove’?

A: Unfortunately at this time, until the features of Office and SharePoint 2010 are finalized and made publicly available, we are unable to give a detailed response. However we can say that as a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, Colligo is working closely with the Office and SharePoint teams to ensure we provide features that enhance Office and SharePoint 2010.

Q: Can you schedule times where Colligo will go into a specific mailbox and move all e-mails in that mailbox to a specific folder in SharePoint?

A: The Outlook Addin will upload to SharePoint any emails deposited in one of its managed folders. Outlook or Exchange rules can be used to move emails into these Colligo managed outlook folders. Colligo will then move all emails in that folder to the corresponding SharePoint folder, automatically extracting email metadata and, using the Contributor default folder level metadata feature, additional fields can be set.

Q: Is the drag and drop option available in the standard version of Colligo Contributor (Not Pro)?

A: Yes, folder level drag and drop will be available in each of the Client, Outlook Addin and File manager interfaces.

Q: Are there any limitations with large SharePoint sites syncing with Colligo?

A: Contributor does not impose any limitations on the amount of content that can be sychronized to a users PC, however, there are a number of factors which will impact user experience including available resources (disk, network, etc.), site complexity (number of libraries, lists, folders and items) and content volatility (size of each item, its metadata and frequency of update). All of these will affect performance and may be different in each installation.

Q: Does the 4.0 version allow you to display sub-sites under the parent site?

A: Colligo R4 is based on connections at a single site level. Each site or sub-site has to be individually connected.

Q: When will this new version be available?

A: Colligo R4 is scheduled to be available during the week of July 13th. Upgrade information for existing customers will be available at that time.

Q: Is it possible to add an https SharePoint URL as a link?

A: Yes, Contributor uses the same links as it accessing the SharePoint site for synchronization. If the site is accessed through https then that link protocol prefix will be specified in the URL.

Q: Does Colligo offer any client side encryption?

A: Yes, Colligo Contributor supports the use of Windows Encrypting File System (EFS). In addition, all file based content is stored in native Windows file format in an open directory structure enabling other security technologies to be deployed.

Q: Does Colligo Contributor also work with other servers besides Sharepoint (e.g. Alfresco Share that supports the same server program interfaces and thus should be transparent for Colligo)?

A: Colligo has not performed an integration and verification with this particular product or other non-SharePoint services. We will certainly add this to the list of potential features we may offer in future releases.

Q: Does the SharePoint attachment management system work if the recipient of the email is external to the SharePoint system?

A: The Colligo attachment manager facilitates the uploading of attachments to SharePoint sites. Out-of-the-box, it does not dicriminate between internal and external email addresses. However, the attachment manager includes a rules engine which can be customized to match enterprise policies on how attachments should be handled. The treatment of an attachment when there is an external recipient is one of the considerations which can be incorporated into that business logic.