Quick Facts
MICROSOFT OFFICE PROFESSIONAL 2007 BETA
Requires: 500-MHz CPU and 256 MB RAM or higher, DVD drive, 2GB hard disk space, Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003 or higher, 800-by-600 or higher display, broadband Internet.
Price: $499
AT A GLANCE REVIEW
(5s is best)
Ease of Use:
Feature Richness:
Project Management Support:
Performance:
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The ubiquitous Microsoft Office is so entrenched it has become the de facto operating system of the workplace. Technicians, project managers, executives and secretaries alike are comfortable creating a document in Word and attaching it, perhaps with an Excel spreadsheet, to an Outlook e-mail sent off to colleagues.
Get ready for some big changes. By year's end, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., USA, plans to release a major upgrade. The revamp will include a complete redesign of the old, familiar user interface, a new graphics and visualization engine, and broader integration of task and workflow tools across the applications that project teams use daily.
The new interface not only looks better, it works harder behind the scenes to reduce the little annoyances in the otherwise easy-to-use Office. The company says the goal was a “results-oriented interface” that helps you with what you want to do—say, add a chart to a document—rather than hiding each step behind a cryptic menu or dialogue box. After using a beta copy of Office, I must say the new features really do take over more of the work for you—once you know your way around the retooled interface. The learning curve can be significant, but worth the effort.
My favorite example of this is SmartArt, which lets you highlight bulleted PowerPoint lists and quickly reformat them into flowcharts and other diagrams chosen from a pop-up gallery of styles. Another example: Changing margins now takes three mouse clicks versus seven and a few keystrokes in the 2000 version. And Live Preview temporarily changes the text when you roll the mouse arrow over the graphic choices so you can preview the results.
A Ribbon Runs Through It
The biggest new design feature is a toolbar on steroids that Microsoft calls the Ribbon. It appears in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and partially in Outlook. Rather than providing the generic File-Edit-View drop-downs we've been staring at for years, the Ribbon shows tasks appropriate for the particular application. The Ribbon in Word, for example, has top-line menu items for page layout, mailings, document review, insert, references, views, add-ins and home. Generic file-level tasks are now behind a large button in the upper left.
The Ribbon takes up the top one-fifth of the screen, and I expect it will take most users a few hours to learn how to use it. Those who are proud of knowing every option on the old Tools menu can take heart: A ribbon-mapping tool does the translation.
Project Perks
In my last review (PM Network, September 2006, page 68) I reported on the improved abilities of another member of the new suite, Project 2007. The other Office applications have few new features explicitly geared to project managers. What they do have, and what the suite has collectively, are more ways to coordinate tasks, calendars and communications among team members.
Office now comes with Groove, the peer-to-peer network utility that made a big splash several years ago and then was snapped up by Microsoft. Groove lets you create shared, collaborative workspaces that collect all the team's files and project information in one place, synchronizing it whenever it changes. It also has chat and instant messaging with presence awareness, and alerts that mark key events.
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The revamp will include a complete redesign of the old, familiar user interface, a new graphics and visualization engine, and broader integration of task and workflow tools across the applications that project teams use daily.
You can import Project 2007 assignments to your Outlook calendar, and report time and progress directly to Office Project Server 2007, which serves as Project's network hub. Right-clicking on Outlook messages flags them for follow-up action by adding them to the task list. You can also publish Excel and Visio reports and export Excel tasks to Project Server.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 is Project's true collaboration server, and Microsoft claims it has better out-of-the-box integration with Office's desktop applications. The desktop authoring tools, such as Word, now have built-in tools that let you set up the workflow features managed on the server and specify which team members have review authority. Reviewers receive e-mail messages and Outlook task updates when their input is needed.
SharePoint ventures into the realm of knowledge management with a new search feature that indexes information according to the people who know it, rather than the documents where it's recorded. It also tries to facilitate social networking by relating search data to a person's organization and communities of interest.
With this upgrade, Microsoft has taken several years' worth of innovations in communication and collaboration technology and finally made them accessible to the average user.
David E. Essex is a freelance journalist specializing in IT.