Workshare Community

Counsel on the Go! Strategies for Secure Document Collaboration While Mobile

Louie Matta — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Lunch is on us!

Join Micro Strategies and Workshare for a lunch and technology discussion in New York City. We will be dining at McCormick & Schmick's while we engage in an interactive dialogue about strategies for secure document collaboration while you are mobile. Workshare will talk about managing and removing metadata and protecting your documents while you access them from your mobile devices.

Microsoft will discuss Office 365 and how it enables anytime availability of your customer matter, while Citrix shows how to access your documents from a digital tablet.

Location: McCormick and Schmicks Seafood Restaurant, 1285 Avenue of the Americas (at 52nd Street).

Date: Monday, January 30, 2012

Time: 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.

Space is limited so register now!

Workshare Online Update

chia.ling — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:46:00 GMT

I am the product manager for our forthcoming cloud solution and was pleased to see the recent blog by PeninsuLawyer about the comparison functionality we’ve been working on. They raise an interesting question about our plans to make the platform available on iPhones and tablets.

Here at Workshare we’re very conscious that the world of tablet devices has moved on considerably in the past twelve months. It’s amazing to think your neighbour, grandmother, five year old child and, of course, you have all probably had their hands on an iPad.

After using an iPad myself for the past couple of years there are three conclusions I have made about using it in a business environment.

One is that the iPad, or more generally tablet devices, are here to stay. We have seen an entire ecosystem of business software and peripherals built around these tablets and there are no signs of the momentum slowing down. This means better and more ways we can all try to be productive with these devices no matter that my screen shows more game apps.

Secondly, it is nearly impossible to be a touch typist with an iPad. What this really says is that trying to edit a document or write a document with a glass surface for a keyboard is not the most productive way to work and may never be. Yes it is possible, and some of you might even be able to hammer out 100 words per minute. Others have perhaps experimented with foldable keyboard but for the majority either way is an exercise in frustration. One way of looking at this is that software vendors have to accept users as having only two fingers rather than ten when designing the interface into their applications. Short cuts, gestures and voice shouldn’t be used just to complement a keyboard, but where appropriate replace them.

Lastly, our apparent addiction to tablets may mean shortcomings of the various input methods are simply accepted. Typing with a full keyboard may take five minutes compared with 15 minutes using the iPad (damn the autocorrect!) but I can do it walking the dog, on the treadmill or maybe some of you have even typed it skydiving. Try doing that with a laptop!

I am pleased to read that the PeninsuLawyer thinks Workshare Online on an iPad would be useful. This is the start of Workshare’s cloud solutions and we will continue to address how users want to compare and review their documents on their chosen devices.

Gibbons Finds Cost Savings By Replacing Adobe with Workshare

David Brennan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:48:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that Gibbons P.C. is deploying Workshare PDF Professional to replace Adobe Acrobat across their organization.

The firm, with offices in Newark, Manhattan, Trenton, Philadelphia and Wilmington, now has a cost-effective solution to create, convert and edit PDFs, including adding rich content and streamlining team collaboration. Workshare PDF Professional integrates with Autonomy Worksite and SharePoint 2010 and will allow their users to easily open, combine files into a PDF portfolio and save PDF files directly in the document repository.

The solution allows you to easily create ebriefs and PDF/A documents, prepare documents for court and electronic filings. It also includes the ability to redact PDF content so that it is no longer discernible and includes tools that allow users to search and redact multiple words, patterns and arbitrary masks such as zip codes or social security numbers.

Here's what Michael had to say about the Workshare PDF solution...

"With PDFs being the most commonly used of all our documents at our firm, finding a dependable solution that can meet the feature requirements of our users is key," said Michael D. Aginsky, Chief Technology Officer, Gibbons P.C.. "We are very happy to now use Workshare PDF Professional which provides us with all the functionality we liked in Adobe Acrobat, but at a more affordable price."

CLE-Eligible LegalTech Session on Legal Document Management

Matthew Brown — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:20:00 GMT

If you happen to be going to the upcoming LegalTech conference I hope you can drop in to see Abramson Smith Waldsmith deliver a CLE-eligible session on legal document management.

Managing Partner Robert J. Waldsmith will discuss how Microsoft Office 365 and Workshare's SharePoint to Outlook integration solution increased accessibility to client matters, addresses the growing needs of mobile users, and will increase profitability through better productivity.

Also be sure to stop by the Workshare booth (#124) to see the latest product innovations for document comparison, metadata removal, PDF and SharePoint. Workshare Point version 1.2, will be on display and you can see how the solution supports Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. The latest release also enhances access to Microsoft's FAST search functionality which is easily accessible in Outlook and the Workshare Point user interface.

I hope to see you at the show.

Workshare - alive and kicking in the UK!

nicky.bowman@workshare.com — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:44:00 GMT

I joined Workshare as the EMEA Sales Director just two weeks ago. Having worked in the legal space before, I am familiar with some of the highs and lows of Workshare. Now that I’m finally here and seeing the numbers for myself I was surprised at some of the misconceptions about Workshare’s state of health in the UK. In part I believe this is down to some small competitors spreading inaccurate stories about us but also I just don’t think we have communicated our success. So I put on my saleforce.com gloves, dived in and I think you’ll agree the results are pretty interesting….

86,550 UK seats renewed in 2011, 59,022 from the top 100 law firms
8 of the top 10, and 17 of the top 25 UK law firms use Workshare extensively
We sold 4,725 new licenses to new accounts in the UK last year
Last quarter was the best EVER for both in the UK and Globally
Several top 25 firms renewed following comprehensive evaluations against our competitors

Workshare has been through a lot of change, including hiring me, but now with the best release ever of Professional, a roadmap taking Workshare into the cloud and a fantastic new team in place I am looking forward to delivering a first class service along with our market leading products.

I intend to meet as many of our customers as I can over the coming months including at our next User Group meeting in March (invitations will be sent out in the next few weeks). I'll also be at tomorrow night's KnowList awards and hope to meet some of you there.

In the meantime I’m always keen to hear from customers and partners, new and old, so give me a call on 020 7539 1355 or email me at nicky.bowman@workshare.com

CNET’s Gives 5-Star ‘Spectacular’ Rating to Workshare Professional 7

David Brennan — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:17:00 GMT

Workshare earned a 5-star ‘Spectacular’ rating for Workshare Professional 7 in a recent review on CNET.com. The strong review is another example of Workshare’s continued emphasis on outstanding product quality.

CNET wrote the software has ‘many productivity-enhancing extras’ and ‘as enterprise-class software, it proved surprisingly easy to configure and use. Even the most technophobic end users should be able to handle it.’

The 5-star review highlighted the easy installation with its clearly labeled icons, the extensive but easy-to-read list of all the various options which are categorized by headings, and described how the software easily compared and tracked changes in documents with substantial changes.

And we’re happy to see it’s not only CNET that recognizes Workshare, here’s what a recent customer had to say about version 7:

“Mintz Levin has been a user of Workshare for many years and can truly confirm their latest version of Workshare Professional 7 is by far a significant improvement over previous versions. The administration of their product is much easier now and performance enhancements are a noticeable improvement. Its new features and enhancements are sure to satisfy our most critical customers. The individualized, one-on-one customer support we have received over the past year has been solid.”
Jason M. León, IT Manager for Mintz Levin

Workshare Professional 7 is an enterprise-class solution which makes it easier to manage and compare documents and enhances the document collaboration process between colleagues and organizations. It works with Microsoft Office so users can easily review and compare changes to contracts, documentation and other business documents when sharing between email, web portals and document repositories as well as to identify and manage hidden information (metadata).

You can download a free trial of the latest version here.

ILTA Tech Survey and Technolawyer Affirm Workshare’s Focus on World Class Software

Matthew Brown — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:27:00 GMT

As we close out 2011 I would like to thank all of our customers for a great year. We put a lot of hard work into releasing quality versions of Workshare Professional, Compare and Protect this past year, and the feedback has been very positive.

The 2011 ILTA Technology survey showed Workshare is the overwhelming top choice at law firms, and we received two listings in the new TechnoLawyer list of the top 15 products of the year for Workshare PDF Professional and Workshare Point, we are very thankful for the recognition.

The ILTA annual survey represented input from over 100,000 attorneys and more than a quarter million users. According to the report, for firms with 50 to 149 attorneys, Workshare’s solution is the number one choice for 53% of respondents, for firms with 150-349 attorneys Workshare is selected by 70%, and for firms with 350-699 attorneys, the software is used by 75%. For firms with more than 700 attorneys, 85% reported selecting Workshare as their solution.

And the TechnoLawyer list of the top 15 products of the year placed Workshare PDF Professional and Workshare Point in the second and fifth places on the list, respectively – the only company to have two products in the top five.

Among Workshare customers, 332 law firms chose Workshare solutions in 2011, and more than 18K organizations use Workshare solutions worldwide. Our continued success is a direct result of making sure we meet your needs with quality software and world class support.

Happy holidays, we look forward to serving you next year!

Happy Holidays from Workshare

David Brennan — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:07:00 GMT

If you ever wonder about the faces behind Workshare this holiday card is for you. We appreciate your business and wish you and your family a fantastic holiday!




Open the holiday card with music	Open the holiday card without music

When Microsoft Word Isn’t Enough – A Webinar on Document Comparison

Louie Matta — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:23:00 GMT

Sometimes your document is really complex and you need to be sure you can count on an accurate version. Join Workshare for a live webinar on Thursday, December 8th, and discover how you can increase accuracy in comparisons while streamlining the collaboration process for complex documents.

Attend this webinar to learn how you can:

• Enhance your document review with advanced accuracy in comparisons
• Increase productivity when comparing and collaborating on documents
• Simplify document version control with master document tracking
• Compare PDF to PDF and Word to text-based PDF documents

Go Beyond the Basic Compare Features of Microsoft Word

Date: Thursday, December 8th
Time: 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM PT (11:30 AM EST)
Join us online!

Join Us at SharePoint Saturday, Learn About SharePoint Outlook Integration

David Brennan — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:44:00 GMT

Looking for an excuse to avoid Saturday’s errands – or holiday shopping? Join us on December 10, 2011 at SharePoint Saturday South Florida, a free community‐focused SharePoint event dedicated to educating and engaging members of the local technical community. Meet other SharePoint professionals and share your real world experiences, lessons learned, best practices, and general knowledge. Are you hearing the “share” drumbeat?

You may have deployed SharePoint to decrease costs by displacing a myriad of expensive legacy IT investments. But, you can increase user adoption, usability and performance with value-added solutions -- like Workshare Point.

Workshare will be presenting a session where you will hear about industry best practices combined with a solution that gives your knowledge workers intuitive access to SharePoint content from their familiar Outlook/Office environment. You will be delighted with how easy it is to integrate SharePoint with Outlook.

SharePoint Saturday South Florida is free and open to the public from 8:30 AM to 5:30PM, December 10th, at Nova University in Ft Lauderdale, FL. Details about the venue are available right here: SharePoint Saturday South Florida.

We hope to see you there!

Word Compare Myths? - You decide

Jes Breslaw — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:33:00 GMT

Here at Workshare we applaud Microsystems recent contribution to the Word Compare debate.

We have of course been pointing out Word Compare’s shortfalls for years (check out Will Office 2007 meet your comparison needs from ‘way back’ in 2009 for some good questions to ask of Word.

Whilst Microsystems guide highlights a few well-chosen gaps in Word Compare and their subsequent band aids, several important components are still missing. This includes PDF to PDF, or Word to PDF comparisons and the ability to compare more than 2 documents at once. In fact we could list another 30+ items. (I won’t, but you can find them in Go Beyond Basic Comparison).

If any firms are seriously considering native Word Compare we recommend that a detailed evaluation is done against your own unique requirements. All the 3rd party experts in document comparison will know from their experience that it only takes one missed change to put an entire case at risk and no one knows your documents better than you.

One of the ‘myths’ Microsystems raise is the well-known problem as they put it:

“Word does not accurately track and present changes in: Tables, Headers/Footers, Footnotes and Table of Contents.”

Their answer though, avoids any real judgement when the ‘fact’ is that yes, Word isn’t that great at comparing these elements and tools like Workshare Professional do them very well. (Sample documents available on request). Microsystems seem to suggest that poor accuracy is something we can/ should live with, but our philosophy is to strive for the perfect redline.

Document Comparison is a fine art. We have dedicated twelve years of engineering time to constantly improve our redlines. This is what law firms require in return for their investment in us. A good example of this is our current efforts to resolve the collaboration workflow issues mentioned in Microsystems guide (experienced by all comparison tools right now). We’ll have our fix available shortly so customers can continue to enjoy the high accuracy, usability and feature rich product they expect.

We agree with Microsystems that the decision to upgrade or continue with technology is more than just bits and bytes. What they don’t understand (how could they?) is that productivity isn’t the primary benefit of document comparison. The #1 reason for document comparison in legal has been about managing risk and that is a critical element in any law firm’s decision making process.

More information

Accuracy - Why MS Word is not good enough

User comments from a recent five star review by CNET of ‘Spectacular’ Workshare Professional 7.

“Its a fantastic product and compares very well - better than Word tracker!”

“I use Workshare Professional for legal document comparison. Much better than Word compare feature. It catches all changes and keep paragraph numbering and cleaner additions, deletion flags.”

New SlideShare from Workshare Gives Tips to Increase SharePoint Adoption

Matthew Brown — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:32:00 GMT

I understand you may be to busy to download Eight Tips to Increase SharePoint Adoption, so we created a high-level presentation and posted it to SlideShare. You can scroll through the slides below to learn about the eight tips.

8 Tips to Increase Microsoft SharePoint Adoption

SharePoint Conference 2011: Day 4 Roundup from Workshare

David Brennan — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:01:00 GMT

The Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 has come to an end and Workshare has compiled one last roundup of session recaps and liveblogs. If you were unable to attend, check out our conference coverage below and then head on over to the official conference website where you can now watch the keynote.

Here is the final roundup:

Dave Coleman's blog, SharePointEduTech, published several new session recaps from Tuesday and Wednesday. Here is one liveblog recap from today:

SPC349 Business Documents Using Word Automation Services and Open XML by Ernst Wolthaus

Blogger Matthew Workman posted three new liveblogs:

Blogger Brahim Souabi recapped several sessions, including:

The website Bamboo Solutions added a new session recap from yesterday evening:

SPC11: How Vancity Took Its Intranet from Static to Social with SharePoint 2010 by John Anderson

CMSWire posted a summary from today and yesterday, including:

On YouTube, Dux Raymond Sy interviewed Chris Johnson about the passion of the SharePoint community.

For those of you who were able to attend the conference, we hope you had an opportunity to experience a demo of our SharePoint application Workshare Point. If you weren’t able to pick up our featured Whitepaper, 8 Tips to Increase Microsoft SharePoint Adoption, it’s now available on Workshare.com!

Thanks to everyone who made #SPC11 such a successful event, and we’ll see you next year in Las Vegas.

SharePoint Conference 2011: Day 3 Roundup from Workshare

Matthew Brown — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:17:00 GMT

Today marks the third day of the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011, and Workshare has another roundup of recaps and liveblog coverage for those of you who were unable to attend.

Here is the roundup for Wednesday, October 5:

Dave Coleman's blog, SharePointEduTech, published more liveblogs and session summaries. Here are two from today followed by one from yesterday:

SPC223: Deploying SharePoint 2010 in Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud Architectures by Tobias Lekman
Summary: Extending SharePoint 2010 Health & Monitoring by Shereen Qumsieh
Planning for the Lifecycle of Your SharePoint 2010 Website by Mark Jones

Matthew Workman's blog featured a few session recaps, including:

The website Bamboo Solutions recapped sessions from today and yesterday, such as:

Blogger Brahim Souabi’s session recaps included:

On YouTube, Dux Raymond Sy interviewed Jared Spataro about SharePoint growth.

Conference participants: We hope you’re enjoying the conference, and learning a lot in the sessions you're attending. Don't forget to stop by booth #260, where Workshare is hosting our daily Kindle giveaway! Get a free entry and a chance to win. Plus, see a demo of Workshare Point, our latest SharePoint and Office integration application.

We'll feature more conference coverage tomorrow. If you'd like to recommend a blogger for us to include, tweet us at @workshare.

8 Tips to Increase SharePoint Adoption: by Workshare

David Brennan — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:14:00 GMT

Organizations today need effective collaboration solutions more than ever. SharePoint can be that solution, but it must be deployed in a way that is inclusive and user-friendly.

We have put together a new guide to help technology professionals increase SharePoint adoption and improve collaboration within their organizations. 8 Tips to Increase Microsoft SharePoint Adoption will help you ensure users leverage SharePoint and ultimately help you with a successful deployment. You can request the free tips guide here.

I'd like to thank Norm Thomas for writing a forward and including his inside expertise. As a consultant, and previously Microsoft’s legal industry market development director, Norm has unique insight into the history and growth of SharePoint.

If you’re at the SharePoint conference this week be sure to stop by booth #260 to pick up a free copy. We hope these tips will help you create a collaborative SharePoint environment that users across your organization are eager to adopt.

SharePoint Conference 2011: Day 2 Roundup from Workshare

Matthew Brown — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:50:00 GMT

It’s the second day of the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011. Conference attendees are headed to a party this evening at Disneyland, but plenty of bloggers have taken the time to recap what they learned in today’s sessions.

Here is the roundup for Tuesday, October 4:

Dave Coleman's blog, SharePointEduTech, published more session liveblogs and recaps. Many were from yesterday’s sessions, but here’s one from today:
Leveraging Project 2010 with Office 365 for Project Management Success (SPC242) by Wendy Neal

Matthew Workman's blog featured several session recaps, including:

Ernst Wolthaus’ blog detailed two sessions:

Bamboo Solutions blogger John Anderson published two recaps:

On YouTube, Dux Raymond Sy interviewed Jeff Teper about being the father of SharePoint.

The website CMS Wire summarized a few sessions from Monday, including:

If you’re a conference attendee, stop by booth #260 – you could be a winner in Workshare’s daily Kindle giveaway! While you’re here, take a look at our SharePoint product, Workshare Point, now with cloud-based connectivity!

Visit our blog tomorrow for more event coverage. Know of any livebloggers we've missed? Tweet us at @workshare.

SharePoint Conference 2011: Day 1 Roundup from Workshare

David Brennan — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:19:00 GMT

Today is the first day of the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011, the most comprehensive SharePoint conference in the world dedicated to SharePoint and related technologies. There are over 240 different sessions to attend featuring many notable speakers.

For those who wanted to attend the conference but couldn’t, we’ll be putting together a daily roundup of recaps, analysis, and liveblog coverage of conference sessions.

Here is the roundup for Monday, October 3:

Dave Coleman's blog, SharePointEduTech, published many session liveblogs and recaps, including:

Phil Wicklund's blog, SharePoint Happenings, published several session video liveblogs, including:

Matthew Workman's blog, features several session recaps

Document Are Boring. Document Solutions Are Not! (spc340) by Ernst Wolthaus

Many bloggers and journalists covered the keynote, including:

Finally, Dux Raymond Sy’s YouTube playlist for SharePoint 2011:

If you’re at the conference, visit Workshare at booth #260 – we’re giving away a free Kindle every day! We’re also demoing our SharePoint product, Workshare Point and giving away free tips for increasing SharePoint adoption.

Check back on the Workshare blog every day during the conference for more coverage. And if you know of any livebloggers we've missed, tweet us at @workshare.

Webinar on Best Practices: Avoid Hidden Data in Office Documents and Mobile Devices

chia.ling — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:34:00 GMT

Join me and the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) on Friday September 30, 2011 at 9AM PST for a live webinar event as we discuss the challenges associated with cleaning hidden data (metadata) from Microsoft Office documents and email attachments.

We'll cover the following topics:

•    Best practices for sharing PDF and Office documents
•    Top tips for effective metadata management in today's organizations
•    How to stop exposure of proprietary data in Office documents
•    The latest in desktop and server-based metadata removal
•    How to protect mobile devices and corporate web mail

Best Practices: Avoid Hidden Data in Office Documents and Mobile Devices

Date: Friday, September 30th
Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM PT (12:00 PM ET)

See you on the webinar!

Visit Workshare at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, California!

Louie Matta — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:34:00 GMT

Workshare is proud to be exhibiting at this year’s Microsoft SharePoint Conference from October 3-6 in Anaheim, California. Be sure to visit our booth (#260) to learn how Workshare Point can help drive Microsoft SharePoint adoption in your organization.

Workshare Point enables users to retrieve and file content to SharePoint without leaving Microsoft Office. Documents and emails can now be retrieved and filed directly into SharePoint from the very tools used to create, send and receive them.

In addition, 4 lucky winners will win a Kindle DX just for stopping by our booth and entering our daily raffle!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Workshare Continues Growth With 1,670 New Customers; Expands Team

Scott Smull — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:08:00 GMT

The customer feedback for version 7 of Workshare Professional, as well as the latest version of Workshare Point, have reinforced the fact that product quality, simplified installation processes, and tools to help customers easily deploy software across an enterprise are paramount to success as a solution provider.

Today Workshare announced Workshare has added more than 1,670 new customers in 2011, which is a direct reflection of our commitment to building quality software and providing superior customer service.

I am also excited to announce that Steve Yount, a technology sales veteran, has joined the company as Vice President of Global Sales. With more than 20 years of experience building and managing sales teams, we are excited to have him help us expand into markets all over the world.

Our latest solutions will be demonstrated at the upcoming 2011 Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, CA and the European SharePoint conference in Berlin. We hope to see you at the show.

What Workshare Learned at the China Legal IT Summit

chia.ling — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:18:00 GMT

I had some great conversations with a number of the local firms at the Legal IT Summit in China last week. It was clear from the presentations and discussions that law firms in China clearly have the same challenges as IT firms in the US and Europe.

One thing that was noticeable is some of the firms do not have the same level of IT support in their organizations. One firm had five IT staff members of which two are solely dedicated to supporting more than 600 end users. This means the firm has an IT staff ratio of 1:120, which is not the ratio you see in other countries. Studies have shown that legal IT in the US typically has a ratio of 1:25 to 1:35. Trying to overcome challenges with limited resources was a common theme.

There was a fascinating discussion on extranets and collaboration by Gerard Neidistsch, Executive Director of Mallesons Stephen Jaques. A core piece of his discussion was around their need to collaborate amongst attorneys as well with clients. They developed a bespoke solution that they named Mallesons Connect. What piqued my interest the most about this solution is the sharing of content including integrations to the DMS and the ability to access this information from a web browser to a mobile device such as an iPad or iPhone.

There were also a number of discussions on knowledge management. What I found most interesting from these sessions was the challenge organizations have to increase adoption of the collaboration and knowledge management solutions they put in place. There was a consensus that people, process and technology are all key elements of a successful solution to increase knowledge sharing. Simply putting a technology solution in place and hoping users will use it typically doesn’t produce the ideal result.

The final day was filled with discussions around e-Discovery. What is clear is that e-Discovery is still a young concept in China and the country is still at the early stages in defining policies around it. There seems to be more questions than answers currently.

There was also a great presentation by a Partner at O’Melvney & Myers on FRCP and how this affects the legal practice, especially as it pertains to Chinese companies who are in legal situations involving US Courts. It was clear that the cultural differences create unique challenges not only for the attorneys’, but also the IT staff.

When they say that things change fast here, seemingly on a whim at times, they truly do and you really have to be here to experience it in person. The people we interacted with at the event have an uncanny can-do attitude and I imagine that this time next year we will see more dramatic changes in legal IT.

Overall a great event that provided interesting insight into practicing law in China.

Announcing the Winners of our SharePoint Contest

David Brennan — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:06:00 GMT

The team at Workshare recently announced our "Win-with-a-Tweet" SharePoint Scholarship contest that kicked off on August 2. One grand prize winner will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 in Anaheim, California (up to $3,000 in value). We also just announced five new runner-up prizes: each runner-up will receive a copy of the book SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Content Management by Todd Kitta, Brett Grego, Chris Caplinger, and Russ Houberg.

The contest came to a close on Friday, August 26 and as promised, the winners are being announced right here on our blog! Thanks to everyone who participated in our contest, and special thanks to SharePoint expert Paul Swider, who served as our contest grand marshal. Paul selected and announced the winners while at the SharePoint Symposium in Costa Rica. (Winners were chosen at random with assistance from a random number generator available at www.random.org.)

Our grand prize winner is @LauraCurtisUX. Our five runners-up are @dwatsonit, @jaysimcox, @JoyKnows, @hvansistine, and @dlairman. Congratulations to all of you! Please look for a DM on Twitter from @Workshare with instructions on how to claim your prizes.

We hope to see you all at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011, and we look forward to hosting another contest in the near future. Until then, be sure to follow @Workshare on Twitter for tips on topics like SharePoint, document collaboration and more.

Easier Metadata Removal With Version 7 of Workshare Protect

Kevin Docherty — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:55:00 GMT

People continue to accidentally email documents with hidden comments and suggested edits, not by choice, simply an accident most of the time. With the release of Workshare Protect 7 today we now make it easier to remove confidential information (metadata) hidden within documentation, financial filings and other business documents.

With Version 7 's significant redesign to the removal interface, it is now much faster to use and more intuitive so users can easily clean metadata from attached documents when sending emails. You can also clean PDF documents as well as choose to process the removal of information with Workshare Protect Server rather than with a desktop application.

We also spent a lot of time building an efficient configuration manager. Your technology team will find much easier parameters management so users can be up and running with minimum hassle.

If you’re interested in reading about companies that have had metadata embarrassments you might find "High Profile Organizations that Unknowingly Exposed Metadata" a good read. It will give you a quick look at some of the more talked about information leaks.

You can check out a complete list of what's new in Workshare Protect 7 here.

Microsoft Office 365 Support Arrives for Workshare Point

Matthew Brown — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:31:00 GMT

Today Workshare announced Workshare Point will support Microsoft Office 365! The new version will allow you to connect to a SharePoint Online Server hosted by Microsoft.

For smaller companies or departments looking for a low-cost entry-level solution for secure Web-based collaboration, Workshare Point 1.2 will also work with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010.

We are excited about the response for our SharePoint solution so far, the latest version of Workshare Point adds these new features:

Ability to preview Outlook messages stored in SharePoint from within Outlook;
Support for site collections (group of websites that have the same owner and share administration settings), including support for subsites;
A new SharePoint email folder pane to help improve filing, synchronization and auto refresh when moving content between Outlook and SharePoint;
Improved auto-profiling which automatically catches metadata from documents and emails and pre-populates the profile pop-up

The new Workshare Point release will also enhance access to Microsoft's FAST search functionality and be easily accessible in Outlook and the Workshare Point User Interface.

> Learn more about the new version here

End-users Gain Control With Workshare Client for Metadata Server

chia.ling — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:28:00 GMT

I talk to a lot of customers about how to design software to meet their needs and no matter what the application they consistently ask for more control. Which is why I'm excited to announce the new desktop client for server-based metadata removal. it provides more control via a light weight add-on to Microsoft Outlook.

Using a server solution to remove metadata from email attachments has a lot of benefits, but sometimes you still want to provide the end-user control over the process. This new desktop client will allow users to select unique profiles to remove metadata from documents and immediately get back to work while the metadata removal is performed off the desktop on the server.

The new Client is an optional desktop component for Workshare Protect Server:

End-users can select unique profiles for specific email recipients
Profile dialog gives detailed description of profile rules
Document cleaning and conversion performed on the server

>> Lean more about the Client here-->