The IW Center

How many of you out there have Access applications that are running your business? I'm constantly amazed at how popular Microsoft Access is and how many customers have entire applications built on Access. On the other hand, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. The entire point of Access is to allow end users to easily create light database applications without having to involve IT for small projects.

Microsoft Office Access 2007 is a dramatically different application than previous versions, so I went straight to the source for the scoop on what's changing. Mor Hezi, a Senior Product Manager in the Office division, is responsible for Access 2007 and I talked to him on the phone recently.

Access 2007 Screenshot Mor first gives an overview of "the new world of work" and how the way that information workers create and share data is changing. He discusses how Access 2007 is adapting to this change by enabling people to create and share information. By using the new user interface ("the ribbon"), Access 2007 makes new features easier to discover and simpler to use.

Mor tells how Access 2007 helps users work better with others through integration with Windows SharePoint Services. Now tables can be uploaded to WSS as lists and information can be shared centrally. Also, Mor talks about how Access 2007 can help you in your compliancy efforts, by using the recycle bin and the revision history in WSS.
Apparently, the reporting engine has been overhauled in Access 2007 so it's easier to create professional-looking, WYSIWYG reports. These reports can then be saved as a .PDF file or the new XPS format in Windows Vista (for more information on the new file formats in Office 2007, listen to the prodcast with Gray Knowlton).

One of the questions that I made sure I asked was on the new Access 2007 file format and what the migration from previous versions of Access would be like. Fortunately, Mor says that Access 2007 will still be capable of opening/editing .mdb files, but that many of the new features are enabled through the newer file format.

So, if you're one of the millions of users who have information stored in Access databases today, you'll want to listen to this prodcast to see how the new version will improve your productivity.

Click the links below to play audio (31:57)
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If you want to get more information on Microsoft Office Access 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.

Microsoft Outlook is the application I use (BY FAR) the most every day. I probably spend 40-50% of my time sending and responding to emails. So I have a great interest in what we're doing to make Outlook even better in the 2007 version.
Recently, I sat down to talk to Jessica Arnold, who is the Product Manager for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. In this prodcast, she gives an overview of how the world of work is changing and how email is adapting to that change. She highlights the new features in Outlook 2007 such as the new user interface, integrated RSS feeds and the instant search capabilities. Jessica also details how Infopath forms can now be hosted inside of Outlook 2007, so users can fill out forms right in their email client.

Since Outlook works best when there's a Microsoft Exchange server on the backend, I asked Jessica to comment on new features that are turned on once you have Exchange. She indicates that Outlook 2007 definitely works better with Exchange "12", now officially known as Exchange 2007. Jessica mentions that there are many new scheduling improvements, such as resource scheduling and "smart schedules." Smart schedules are when Outlook 2007 tells you that the best time for a meeting is when 4 out of the 5 people can meet and the next best time where all 5 people can meet. See screenshot for a better picture of this.

If you're like me and use Outlook heavily, listen to this prodcast and get excited about the changes we're making in Outlook 2007.

Click to Play Audio (17:12)
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For more information on Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.

Last fall, I interviewed Matt Pope, who is a Group Program Manager in the Groove division. Microsoft had just acquired Groove Networks and Ray Ozzie had just been named one of our CIO's. Since then, I've become a Groove fanatic. It's such a fantastic tool to collaborate and share documents between companies or teams. I even use it to synchronize data between my home PC and my work laptop. A lot is changing about the product as we get closer to releasing Groove 2007, so I thought it might be time to get an update. I had the opportunity to spend an hour on the phone with Ryan Hoppe who is a Product Manager for the Groove 2007 product and he had a lot to say about the new version.

In the prodcast, Ryan discusses how Groove is more tightly integrated with the other applications in the Office System, such as Office Communicator and presence integration right in Groove workspaces. He also talks about using Infopath forms to capture data between members of a workspace. Ryan reveals how Groove both works with Windows SharePoint Services, as well as stands alone as a great collaboration tool.

Ryan also details the server back-end for Groove 2007 and the components that an enterprise customer would need (relays, managers and data bridges). The data bridge is particularly interesting because it allows Groove users to collect data and automatically push that data into back-end applications such as manufacturing or logistics systems.

If you're not familiar with Groove or would like to hear what's coming in the new release, listen to this prodcast and start "grooving".

Click to Play Audio (35:58)

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If you want to learn more about Groove, please visit the Microsoft website.

Microsoft Office OneNote is the application I use the most, second only to Microsoft Office Outlook. OneNote is a digital note-taking application, but it's also a place to store all kinds of unstructured data. Last year, I interviewed Scott Rockfeld on the OneNote team and we recorded a OneNote 2003 prodcast. Since Beta 2 is right around the corner, I pinged the product team to see if we could do an updated one for OneNote 2007. Alex Robinson is the Product Manager in the Office division responsible for OneNote and he was happy to spend some time with me on the phone to discuss the exciting new version.

Alex reveals how OneNote 2007 is making great strides in both individual and group productivity. He highlights the "shared notebook" feature of OneNote 2007 which allows users to post their notebooks to a SharePoint Server site and then share with other users on their team. He discusses how OneNote and Outlook can sychronize data like tasks between the two applications. Alex also talks about what types of users in an enterprise, as well as which vertical industries might benefit most from using OneNote 2007.
It took me a while to get used to NOT taking notes in notepad, Microsoft Word, or on paper. But since I've converted to putting everything in OneNote, I find myself being more prepared for meetings and getting more of my "to-do's" done.

Take a listen to the prodcast and see how OneNote might improve your productivity.

Click to Play Audio (32:52)
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For more information on Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.

InfoPath is one of the lesser known applications in the Office System, but potentially one of the most powerful. InfoPath is Microsoft's solution for electronic forms and data input. Based entirely on XML, the data captured by an Infopath form can be re-used by SharePoint, SQL Server, web-services or any other application that understands XML.

Last year, I interviewed Gray Knowlton, Senior Product Manager for InfoPath 2003. Now that InfoPath 2007 is out, I thought it would be good to get an update on our electronic forms solution. Gray was kind enough to spend another hour with me on the phone, so here's the InfoPath 2007 prodcast!

Gray reviews the current release, talks about how customers are using Infopath 2003 today and then moves on to highlight the changes in Infopath 2007. One of the biggest changes he discusses is the ability to fill out an InfoPath form via a web browser. This is a huge advance and will enable customers to collect and validate data even if the Infopath client isn't installed on the user's local machine. Gray also discusses how InfoPath is natively hosted inside the other Office applications like Word and Excel, so meta data can now be caputured about the document and re-used by SharePoint.

Click to Play Audio (21:20)
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To learn more about Infopath 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.

This week's prodcast is about Visio. Many people perceive Visio as a simplistic org charting too, but it's so much more than that. Visio also maps network topologies, database schemas, complex workflow diagrams, and even custom floor plan drawings. Now that we've shipped Visio 2007, I thought it would be good to find out what's new in our flagship diagramming product.

I had the opportunity to interview Ritu Chaturvedi who is a Product Manager on the Visio team. She discusses how Visio is evolving in the next release. The developers have spent a great deal of time making Visio easier to use and have dramatically improved the visualization capabilties in Visio 2007.

Ritu also highlights a new feature called "Pivot diagrams". Similar to a pivot chart in Excel, pivot diagrams allow users to drill down into their data and graphically represent the results. She also talks about the new data graphics capabilities which enable you to highlight conditional data using icons, flags or data bars.

Click to Play Audio (27:45)
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For more information on Visio 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.

This week's prodcast is about Project 2007 and the new Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007 offerings. Recently, I had the opportunity to get an update on our EPM solutions from William Lyon, who is a Senior Product Manager on the Project team. For those of you who have been following The IW Center for a while, you may remember I interviewed William last year about Project 2003. A lot has changed in the Microsoft EPM offering, so I thought it would make sense to revisit the topic, with a focus on what's coming later this year.

In this prodcast, William talks about the recent UMT acquisition and how Microsoft is moving much more into the enterprise project porfolio managemet space. He highlights intergration points with SharePoint Server and other Microsoft Office applications. For example, Project tasks and Outlook tasks can now be the same item, so if you change the status in one place, it will change in the other application automatically! He also outlines the improvements that are being made in the desktop Project applications based upon customer feedback.

Click to Play Audio (28:02)
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For more information about Microsoft Project, visit the Microsoft website.

One of the most striking new features of the Office 2007 core applications is the new User Interface. Known as "the ribbon" (although it's much more than just the ribbon component), this new UI dramatically simplifies the user experience while exposing new and pre-existing functionality.

I had the chance last week to sit down with Jensen Harris, who is a Lead Program Manager on the Office User Experience team. Many of you may know Jensen from his public blog, which is widely regarded as THE PLACE to go for information about the new Office UI.

In Part 1 of this prodcast, Jensen talks about how the Office applications have evolved over the past twenty years and how they've outgrown the menu/toolbar based UI of the past. He highlights how the products have grown in functionality and how that growth has made it challenging to keep the user interface easy to use.  Jensen also shed some light on how Microsoft has spent years studying how people work with Microsoft Office and how we've collected massive amounts of data on WHAT features are used and HOW they are used. As a result, we can now design a UI that makes popular features more prominant and lesser-known features easier to discover and use.

Click here to Play Audio. (35.33)
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For more information about the new Office UI, visit Jensen's blog.

In Part 2 of his talk on why Microsoft developed a new User Interface (UI) for the core Office 2007 applications, Jensen Harris discusses the actual components of the new UI. Much more than just "the ribbon", Jensen drills down into the ribbon, galleries, live preview, quick access toolbars, contextual tabs and even touches on enhanced keyboard shortcuts.

At first I was worried that this session would be difficult to conceptualize, since the UI is very VISUAL and my prodcasts are audio only.  Luckily, my reservations were unfounded... Jensen does a GREAT job describing each of the new UI pieces and how they work.
Just in case: If you haven't had a chance to see any screenshots yet...here is one of Microsoft Word 2007.

Click the links below to play audio (39:43)
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For more information about the new Office UI, visit Jensen's blog.