Offline SharePoint

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.

This afternoon I received a question on our support for versioning.  In short, our support is as follows:

Colligo Contributor and Reader behavior is the same here. The latest version is downloaded – in Reader that is the end of the story as it is a reader with no write access.  In Contributor uploading documents will act as SharePoint is configured.

SharePoint Options               Contributor

No version history                Changes uploaded & current version over-ridden

Major Only                             New Major version created

Major & Minor                        New Minor version created

Andy Dale, the Senior SharePoint Consultant at UK SharePoint Specialists, Officetalk published his list of “Best SharePoint” Awards for 2009 on his blog. I’ll repeat them here:

1 Best SharePoint Information Site 2009
Winner – SharePoint Reviews

The newcomer on the block which contains reviews of 100’s of SharePoint Products

2 Best SharePoint Webpart Provider 2009
Winner – SharePoint Boost

Creating easy to install and use webparts as if they are going out of fashion

3 Best SharePoint Administration Tool 2009
Winner – ControlPoint from Axceler

Finally a way of really managing all those user permissions across all of your servers and sites. Oh, and very useful for moving complete sites.

4 Best Website built on SharePoint 2009
Winner – Cadbury

Chocolate and SharePoint have never tasted so good.

5 Best SharePoint Training Package 2009
Winner – CBT Clips

Still the best solution to show End Users how to use SharePoint.

6 Best SharePoint Offline Solution 2009
Winner – Colligo Contributor from Colligo

Allows SharePoint to be with you even when the network isn’t. Don’t forget to download the free reader on the right.

7 Most Useful SharePoint Webpart 2009
Winner – Batch Check-in from SharePoint Boost

Lets us finally get rid of the ‘Checked Out’ annoyance after we have move lots of documents.

8 Favourite Free SharePoint Webpart 2009
Winner – Google Search Webparts

Keep your users in SharePoint as they Google away.

9 Most Fun Free Webpart 2009
Winner – Picture Puzzle Widget from Spring Widgets

Spring Widget have lots of snazzy free webparts including cat clocks with moving tails

10 Biggest SharePoint Mess-up 2009
Winner – Microsoft for 180 day expire error on SP 2.

Thanks a lot Andy. We are very flattered, indeed, that you selected Colligo Contributor as a winner this year!

New versions of Colligo Reader and Colligo Contributor have just been released. Colligo Reader, a free product for viewing SharePoint content offline, can be downloaded now. Colligo Contributor is available for purchase from the Webstore.

Reader Version 1.9 has a bunch of new features, including:

• Enhanced Synchronization Experience :

  • Background sync on startup and configurable intervals
  • Internet Explorer button for site sync selection
  • Drag & drop browser URL to launch site sync
  • Systray icon with sync status and stop sync option

• Configure Storage Location : Change storage location on local drive
• Picture Library Support : Read-only access to view picture libraries
• New Look : SharePoint 2007 UI for enhanced usability

Sorry for the blatant advertising, but I thought people might want to know that there will be a price increase on January 1, 2007 so if you are thinking about purchasing Contributor, it’s probably a good idea to do so before year end. Colligo has also introduced a new software assurance support option (called “Premium Support”) that entitles customers to major version upgrades. This will be important for people that have purchased a 1.x product so they can upgrade for free to Version 2.0 in February when it’s released. Version 2.0 will be compatible with MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0. In case you don’t know what’s coming in 2.0, the demo is online.

Barry.