Limitations in Using Groove to Offline SharePoint, Apr 11

Chapter 18 of the Groove v3.0 Users Guide (PDF, 1.6 MB) discusses the capabilities of Mobile Workspace for SharePoint. This is the Groove template that enables Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) users to take a WSS space offline so they to use and modify the data in the Groove client. There are some limitations on the capability, as would be expected, but the limitations seem quite severe:

• Only one person can sync Groove and a WSS site (p.193). The creator of the mobile workspace is assigned the Groove workspace Manager role, and has exclusive rights to sync between Groove and WSS. In other words, other members of the WSS space can not sync between WSS and Groove; they must sync with Groove user that has the sole right to sync with WSS.


• Sync rights on one computer (p.193). The (physical) computer on which the Groove mobile workspace was created is the only one that can sync back with WSS. If the Groove user shares the account so they can run Groove on a laptop also, the second Groove-enabled machine can not sync with WSS. What happens when the user gets a new computer? They have to recreate the space.


• Don't change the design templates for WSS content pages (p.193). Groove may not support WSS sites that have had the design templates for content pages modified outside of WSS.


• One time ability to set user rights (p.194). The role that a given user plays in the WSS site can only be set during the invitation process. It is not possible to change a member's role after the invitation has been accepted. I guess they could be uninvited, the space deleted, and then re-invited with a different access level.


• Have to be network connected to update WSS (p.194). The person who has taken the WSS site offline must be connected to the corporate network in order to update the WSS server. So, if that person travels frequently, and shares the information with others, there will be timelags introduced into the process from when changes are made in Groove and they are shared back with the other WSS users.


• Single threaded sync between Groove and WSS (p.194). While Groove is sync'ing a Mobile Workspace site and WSS, the Groove user is not able to do any other Groove activities. As the manual says, "if you're synchronizing large amounts of data, this may take some time". There is no percentage complete indicator, and "The Windows Task Manager may also intermittently report that Groove is 'Not Responding', though this condition should be self correcting" (p.199).


• Synchronization is off by default (p.195). Unlike the "no-thinking security" settings in Groove, the Mobile Workspace is created with a default setting of no synchronization. The workspace Manager has to turn it on.


• Different ways of deleting discussion records (p.201). When items in hierarchical lists are deleted, SharePoint only deletes the item that was deleted, but Groove also deletes children in the hierarchy. So if an item with hierarchical responses is deleted in WSS and then the space is sync'd with Groove, Groove will delete the hierarchical responses as well, and sync those deletions back the next time. Talk about disappearing information.


• No record kept of last editor (pp.205-206). Since only one person can sync changes from Groove to WSS, every change made in the space while it is in Groove is marked in WSS as having originated from the person who originally took the WSS space offline.

In conclusion, it is no wonder that Microsoft is selling Groove Virtual Office as a standalone offering. There is heaps of work to be done before anything resembling seamless and intelligent integration is possible between the two products. There are too many decision points and counter-points to be considered before taking a WSS site offline: who will take it offline? On what computer? What role do I want this person to play for the lifecycle of the space?

Comments

[Eric Mack]

Michael, As usual, an excellent assessment.

I know that this is a simplistic answer, but I'll say it any way:

Notes

Many of the deficiencies in Groove were solved a decade ago by Ray Ozzie with Notes. Surely he is aware of the value of those features. While I like the elegance of Groove -- that it runs out of the box, so to speak -- I'm surprised that Ray did not attempt to include more of the off-line/disconnected capabilities of Notes.

There is one more issue that I would like you to consider and that is the emotional one. Like you, I was discouraged to learn that Groove was not really peer-to-peer. I understood that the Groove client depended upon a directory service; however, it was not made clear on the site or the early documentation that my data was not always moving peer-to-peer. Emotionally, I am hesitant to come to rely upon an application that I have no control over and about which I am now uncertain of its future.

Just my $.02 (or whatever this comment is worth down under).

Eric

[Matt Pope]

Michael,

Indeed there are some limitations in Mobile Workspace for SharePoint. You've hit on many that are technical in nature. In practice, however, I can tell you that the bigger issue is far more fundamental and often operational in nature.

We've had customers get fired up about SharePoint integration, start to use Mobile Workspace for SharePoint, and then quickly learn that while they want Groove-SharePoint integration, they're not really looking for an offline SharePoint client. Rather, they want tighter integration of the products within the context of the processes and projects that users are engaged in.

It's not a question of SharePoint-while-online and Groove-while-offline, but rather SharePoint for publishing and sharing with larger groups of people (e.g. department level) and Groove for dynamic, "hot" collaboration for some discrete amount of time and by a relatively small team of people that represent a subset of the larger group (e.g. team level). This dynamic requires configurable (and seamless) information flow between the two environments as well as the ability to impart proces, e.g. spawn a Groove workspace based on a need identified within SharePoint, or upon workspace shutdown archive the information (or a subset) to SharePoint for the larger group to see.

This dynamic is precisely why we invested in the Enterprise Data Bridge (EDB) product in v3.0. EDB is a server-side product bundle with ecKnowledge from CASAHL, Technology. It allows us to integrate with SharePoint, but also many other enteprise apps and dbs. Its very different than Mobile Workspace for SharePoint, allowing for the kind of dynamic, process-oriented integration I mention above.

Don't get me wrong, I still think there's a need for better, simpler client-side (and thus, lightweight and user-driven) integration with SharePoint, particularly for files. I hope we get there soon...