Saturday, June 17, 2006

Workshop: Collaboration & Security in MS Applications

on 16 June 2006 @ Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School

What's covered in the workshop (some notes)
1. Sharing Comments/Merging Documents in Word

Using the comment feature, there are 2 ways to collect inputs from various people

  • a document can be circulated to various people in a sequential manner, and each will each their comments to the same document. By default, the 'reviewer' will be reflected (based on the user name they log on to)
  • the same document can be duplicated and send to all reviewers simultaneously. After which, use the merge feature to merge the comments. The disadvantages are: The reviewers have no idea what others have commented; when there is a repeated action, the input of the earlier merged document maybe overwritten by the latest copy that merges with the document.
2. Tracking Revisions in Word
  • revisions can be displayed in 2 different ways - via the normal view and the print view.
  • it enables one to keep track of changes made to a document.
  • feature that's new and useful (to me): Saving the work under different versions - though saved in the same document, different versions can be saved such that it reduces trouble in the way we used to work on documents (when we save with different filenames). Now, all can be saved under the same filename.
3. Managing Files Security in word
  • setting passwords at different stages - to open the document, to make changes to the document.
  • it's a disappointment that digital signature cannot be demonstrated in the workshop.
4. Working with Comments in Excel
  • feature that is new (to me): Comments in different Excel worksheets/workbooks can be merged
5. Sharing Workbooks in Excel
  • feature that is useful (to me): Normally, the workbook is placed in the server so that it is accessible to many at one time; however, once it's opened, subsequent users can only view the spreadsheet as a read-only file. Now it can be 'shared out' such that multiple users can input data into the same spreadsheet - however, take note of the 'winner' overwriting the previous entry.
6. Using Worksheet Protection in Excel
  • Protecting the worksheet as a whole or releasing some cells such that users can make changes to selected cells.
  • feature that is new and useful (to me): Protecting different sets of cells such that these are accessible by selected groups of people.
7. Collaborating on a Presentation in PowerPoint
  • A new feature that I came to know, however, it's only possible if using Outlook as the emailing application. On the other hand, have yet find a place where this feature comes in useful or helpful to what we're doing now.
8. Security and Packaging in PowerPoint
  • the feature is similar to 'Pack-and-go' or the saving the file as an executeable file.
  • feature that is new and useful (to me): saving the fonts embedded into the presentation. This is certainly very very helpful and releases the constraint to confine to the common fonts.

This workshop is definitely helpful to those of us who conduct workshops, and when designing baseline lessons.