New to Sharepoint - Excel question

[vbajock]

I've just had a Sharepoint install dropped in my lap. I know little about it and have to get up to speed fast. My first project is to use Sharepoint to allow users to share an Excel spreadsheet. Easy stuff or difficult project? Where do I get started - the server side is all set up but the Admin quit before the user Portals had any work done on them at all. If I can just get them the spreadsheet I can throw the wolves a bone long enough to get out of the forest.

Thanks
Kirk

 

[dlongnecker]

Welcome to the exciting world of SharePoint! Truly no sarcasm intended as document sharing is one of the easiest aspects to the Portal.

First off, are you using SharePoint Portal or just SharePoint Services (WSS)? If the Portal, you'll need to create a site for your users to work. Under Sites, you'll see the option to create a new site... follow through the "wizard", and your workgroup will have a new site. From there, add users (in Site Settings) and grant them permission to the site (typically as a Contributor if they'll be managing content). Upload their Excel file into the default document library and inform the users! At a very high level, they're ready to start!

One thing I'd like to point out is that SPS2003's document sharing features are very dependent on Office 2003's architecture for the "spiffy" in-browser editing and instant messaging. With anyting but 2003, they'll lose that, but still have the ability to check-in/check-out and do version tracking.

Let me know if that helps you in the right direction or you need a bit more information and I'll look up some guides and post them.

Good luck!

-David

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David R. Longnecker
Web Developer
CCNA, MCSA, Network+, A+
Management Information Services
Wichita Public Schools, USD 259

 

[vbajock]

Thanks for the reply David! The thing I am trying to implement is slightly different from Document sharing. It's this little jewel, a not very well documented jewel from MS:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...74-d960-4d14-a9df-9024e39f5463&DisplayLang=en

It creates an add-in to Excel that is supposed to turn the spreadsheet into a web part that then manages multi-user changes to the spreadsheet thru SQL Server, and then updating the Spreadsheet itself when it is opened by the owner/user. The concepts seem to be Shared Workbook vs Shared Workspace. The reason for all this is concurrency problems are happening in using Excel's native shared workbook mode, apparently due to Cytrix server issues - the company is really far flung and is transitioning from using their internal WAN to using the Internet to solve these kinds of problems, hence Sharepoint. I am afraid if I use the Document Library approach, it will just be subject to the same concurrency issues, however the shared workspace approach looks like I can take advantage of their solid SQL Server platform and Sharepoint's integration with it to solve the problem. What do you think?

 

[vbajock]

bump

 

[dlongnecker]

Hehe, no need to bump... went to reply last Friday and backspaced and deleted it all and made the decision to go home rather than retype and haven't been back to work (holiday today). (^_^)

I downloaded the add-in to Excel; but I'm not sure it does _exactly_ what you're looking at. From what I was able to do:

1) create custom Excel file with forumlas, etc.
2) use add-in to place my excel file into an existing document library and link to it,
3) open the Excel file in a "page viewer" web part...

Is there any documentation to do what you're looking at or that at least verifies that it "can be done"? I can't even find a readme file for the addin. (;_

I don't see the whole "manage multi-user changes"... I'll tink around with it a bit more tomorrow when I have a SPS server in front of me... just had WSS today here at home.

Let me know and I'll keep exploring the part. If it does allow the SQL base to manage changes (similar to how the document library works), then that's pretty cool, but so far, it just looks like it allows you to place Excel files into "page viewers", for, say, a quick accounting application on the site's homepage (figure your bonus, compensation, etc).

Regards,

David

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David R. Longnecker
Web Developer
CCNA, MCSA, Network+, A+
Management Information Services
Wichita Public Schools, USD 259

 

[vbajock]

Microsoft said it's supposed to have all the functionality of the original spreadsheet. The advantage, if it actually works, which I am beginning to doubt, is that it can interact with other web parts. The problem I am having is on the second dialogue box, where it asks for the default URL and for some other info to be filled in. I am totally clueless as what to put in where. If I put the portal's main address in, I get an HTTP: File not Found 404 error. If I try to plug something in other then the "Mylib" default in the other dialogue boxesm, I get all kinds of "URI too long" errors. I also have no idea where to look in SPS for where these files have actually landed. If you got beyond that dialogue screen and can tip me off, I owe you lunch next time you're in Houston.

 

[dlongnecker]

Okay!

Downloaded the web part and installed it into Excel and created a little mini app (figuring future value, simple FV forumla).

I then went to "Create Webpart" and made the following changes:

Server URL: Pointed to a SITE on my SPS server (not the actual server)~~ex.

http://portal/sites/mis/webdeveloper/

I then clicked 'Get Live DocLib Information' and it read in the document libraries on the site... I selected a temp library I created and clicked Create.

I'm sure there can be more customization done at this point, but... this is just to test.

From there, I opened up SPS, went to my site, and imported the DWP that I uploaded to the server. Unfortunately, it wasn't trusted soI had to add it to the configuration files to trust it (not sure I like that... users won't be able to do that) and placed it on the site.

Generally, it gave me just a viewer window of an Excel file... I'm sure you could import the SPS classes into Excel and use VBA to call other web parts... maybe. I don't see how else to interact with existing web parts. You could probably recreate the same thing in VS.NET by placing the spreadsheet as an object, then compiling it as a web part--at least you'd have all of VS.NET to build the connections between that web part and the others.

Not quite sure where to go from here... a cool idea, but I'm stuck on what else to try.

Good luck and if you find a way--please write a FAQ! It looks like an interesting tool and the idea of users being able to create simple spreadsheet webparts is quite appealing (if the token registering issue can be worked around).

Thanks!

-David

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David R. Longnecker
Web Developer
CCNA, MCSA, Network+, A+
Management Information Services
Wichita Public Schools, USD 259

 

[vbajock]

We are still trying to install it - for some reason it does not recognize the server address - after you click Get Live Doc Lib Information, I get an HTTP: File not found 404 error. I have tried http:\\servernameortNo and just http:\\servername and no luck. We are going to try installing Excel locally on the server next - did you run into any problems like that?

 

[dlongnecker]

Nope, but I didn't go directly to the server name, I had to point it to a site within the portal, one of the team sites...

-David

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David R. Longnecker
Web Developer
CCNA, MCSA, Network+, A+
Management Information Services
Wichita Public Schools, USD 259

 

[vbajock]

OK, we got that resolved, and learned a few things. In order to enable editing of the spreadsheets, macros, etc, you have to install Excel on the server. In the office install, select custom install and install Excel with Shared Components, set to "run all from my computer".

The Lib URL is the actual page URL of the page you are plugging the web part into. The MS guy also had me add a step that sounds like you aren't doing - after the Create Web Part is run, you go to the Web part page, click manage content, and now you will see the Lib you created in the document list. He has me right click the Webpart component, and save the .dwp to a local files, then go back to the Web Part target page, and do an Modify Shared Components, Import. This puts the Web Part component on the Lib menu, and you drag the component to the Web part frame from this. Presto, it works so far. Haven't tested it fully, but I can edit cells.

 

[dlongnecker]

Hmm, cool! Not sure why it worked over here... our network supervisor would skin me alive if I installed Office on a server, but I could still drop the web part on the page just fine and see "Excel views". Glad you got it worked out and can start testing.

The component still interests me... while I haven't figured out how to get it to talk to other components, I did build a couple of simple spreadsheet applications yesterday that worked pretty slick.

All in all, thanks for the link to the application and the experience.

Cheers!

-David

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David R. Longnecker
Web Developer
CCNA, MCSA, Network+, A+
Management Information Services
Wichita Public Schools, USD 259

 

[vbajock]

Strange your admin doesn't want Office on a server, we do it all the time. Nothing worse than sitting at a server console or doing a remote and finding out you don't have a tool you need.

You can try installing the one component it needs on the server, downloading from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...A5-2056-46A1-84B1-337FFB549C5C&DisplayLang=en

we did it that way the first time and it did not work, but we were dealing with other issues that could have been the cause of that as well - all's I know is that when we installed Excel with all Shared Components on the Server, everything started working.

 

[dlongnecker]

I've give that a shot; though, as I said, it worked just fine for me without Office (the ability to get a spreadsheet view that is). Office on the server is a policy issue more than anything--data security in education is a bit odd and overzealous. It's hereacy because I have FP2003 on a development server since I don't have it at home and can RDP in and work. Joy joy joy.

As I said before, please, if you figure out how to get the web parts and that spreadsheet to actually talk (e.g. specific user logs in and views the news, they see a change on that web part with statistical information, etc), write a FAQ. (^_^)

Take care!

-David



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David R. Longnecker
Web Developer
CCNA, MCSA, Network+, A+
Management Information Services
Wichita Public Schools, USD 259