Excerpt from *Administrator's Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers: Forms Server 2007, Groove Server 2007, Live Communications Server 2007, PerformancePoint Server 2007, Project Portfolio Server 2007, Project Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007 for Search.
ISBN-10: 0-672-32949-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-672-32949-4

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IN THIS CHAPTER

• Working with the Groove Client

• The Groove Client Possibilities

• Groove Accounts and Identities

• The World of Groove Development

• The Ten Habits of Highly Successful Groovers

• Groove in a Nutshell

There are usually three sides to every deployment: the installation, the configuration, and the client. In the previous two chapters, we discussed the installation and configuration of your Groove Manager, Relay, and Data Bridge servers. In the event you need these servers in-house, you should have no difficulty establishing your server base, ensuring network functionality (by opening the correct ports through firewalls and so forth), or maintaining a connection between your Groove environment and your Active Directory (AD) environment, which are distinct. For most Groove setups, you are complete.

However, there are branches that come off of the base we've given you. This chapter explains how to use your Groove client and what else your Groove structure can be used for, and finishes the discussion about Groove with a solid explanation of how to use the Groove client.

Working with the Groove Client

Some may consider the Groove client to be self-explanatory. They, like all presumptuous software users, will certainly be able to "get it to work," but will most likely be missing out on some of the finer features. But, admins should be up-to-date on what Groove clients can do, and how to do it.

To begin with, let's create our first Groove workspace.

The Groove Launchbar

When you start your computer with Groove 2007 installed, you will see a Groove icon in your taskbar, and the Groove Launchbar (shown in Figure 6.1) will be available by default, although you can alter these startup options. In the event you have disabled your taskbar application icons, which are popular these days, you can always launch Groove through your Programs, under Microsoft Office.

Figure 6.1
The Groove client Launchbar.

You can find everything you need to get started with Groove on the Launchbar. You'll notice that you have two tabs, one for Workspaces and one for Contacts. To alter the appearance of your Launchbar, select the Options menu and turn off Tabbed View. This action stacks both the workspace and contact portions together.

There are different ways to create a new workspace. From the Launchbar, you just click the New Workspace link at the top. Or, select the File menu and choose New – Workspace.

You will be presented with the option to create one of three types of workspaces, as shown in Figure 6.2:

• File Sharing. This type let's you share the contents of a folder with all computers that you hold a Groove account on or with other users you invite. A file-sharing workspace will appear in your Launchbar under its own heading, to make these workspaces easier to find and sort. If you choose this option, you can select an existing folder for sharing, or create a new folder that can be automatically placed on your desktop (or wherever you choose).

• Standard. This type let's you work with a Files tool and a Discussion tool. You can add more tools if you like. This is the quickest way to create a functioning workspace. When it is up and running, you can make configuration changes.

• Template. This custom type let's you choose the initial set of tools within the workspace. Suppose, for example, you just want a workspace for playing chess (yes, an option). You can create one specifically for this purpose and not have to have the Files and Discussion tool in your initial workspace. You can also find other workspaces that you might have saved as templates and use those, with the tools already in place.

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Note - Because the added documents and such within a workspace are not kept on a server, usually, but within each person's workspace so that he or she can work on individual pieces when not able to connect to a Groove server, that workspace might grow quite large over time. Although no specific size restriction applies to workspaces, it is recommended that you limit your size to 2GB or less. Beyond 2GB and Groove will not even be able to include new invitees to your workspace. To view the size of a workspace, just right-click the workspace from the Launchbar and choose Properties. The size is on the General tab.

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Figure 6.2
Choosing your workspace type.

Quick Access to Workspaces

Laurent Kempé, in his blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/lkempe/default.aspx, provides some advice about how to launch a workspace faster than using the Groove Launchbar (upgraded here for Vista):

1. Select the Start orb and go to your Documents folder.

2. Create a folder and call it GWS (for Groove workspaces), or something of your choosing. In your GWS folder, you might create additional folders to classify your workspaces.

3. Open the Groove Launchbar.

4. Select one workspace and drag it to the folder you just created. Automatically, a shortcut will appear.

5. Continue doing so for all workspaces you want to have access to.

6. Right-click the taskbar and choose in the context menu Toolbars, New Toolbar.

7. In the dialog, browse to Documents, GWS, and then click OK.

You now have a new toolbar called GWS in the window's taskbar that let's you choose a workspace without running the Groove Launchbar.