Real World SharePoint® 2007: Indispensable Experiences from 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs

Chapter 11. Using Excel Services

by Luis Du Solier Grinda

Since SharePoint 2003, significant enhancements have been made related to the interaction with Microsoft Office Suite applications. You can now better share information generated with Office applications using a SharePoint collaboration Web site. The files stored in a SharePoint document library can be edited and shared with the rest of your coworkers using the Office family (for example, a Word client). This not only allows you to work with documents, but also to use your SharePoint team Web sites for sharing team calendars, creating and assigning tasks to other team workers, chatting with team workers, creating surveys, creating discussion forums, and keeping your team informed about any important activities.

These capabilities provide you with great functionality and interaction when using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Access. And, of course, when using a browser, team members can interact with their information and collaborate with other people on the same (or other) projects. The idea is to do more (or even have the capability to do much more) with the same applications and knowledge you and your people already have, with the purpose of being more productive.

Microsoft has introduced significant enhancements with Office 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). This chapter focuses on Excel Services, which is included with MOSS 2007 as the server-side component of the client-server relationship. With Excel ...