Part 2 : Office 2007 Plunge - Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007

I couldn't be more pleased with how Wednesday nights upgrades went. The Office suite seemed to run nicely on the pcs that I mentioned in my previous blog.

I didn't go in to the office until around 5pm preparing for what I thought might be a lengthy evening. But all was said and done by around 10:30pm including all the patches and upgrades for the Office 2007 suite.

I'm extremely excited about the potential that this upgrade has to offer our staff both on an efficient level as well as a 'fun' level. There is nothing wrong with adding a little fun to the everyday mundane office world. Currently our church doesn't have an exchange server but in 2008 that will all change. Like I have mentioned previously I come from the corporate world. That said, this is probably one of the first offices I've been in that doesn't have shared calendar and such available. Bringing shared calendar here to the size staff SFLC now has will be a huge help I'm sure to almost everyone. More to come on our current Email environment in my next blog...

Thursday we had a nice sit down and walk-through session for our administrative staff on the changes of features and looks. Microsoft actually had a great power point presentation that helped me throw a little something together visually. It can be found here. There are actually quite a few tools and resources available there as well that can be very useful to your staff in getting started and adjusted to the changes of this office version as well as it's previous packages. And hey it's free - and who doesn't like free, right?

As I mentioned earlier we currently do not have exchange, sharepoint, or groove environments. But I've been researching a lot of the advantages and features of both sharepoint and groove and I'm excited to start testing away with both. Getting an exchange server is part of our major upgrade for the beginning of 2008 and should be a huge welcome here. So Office and Exchange alongside sharepoint... the possibilities are almost endless. Please share your success and maybe not so successful stories of implementing these tools if you have the time! It would be great to hear how it's had an effect on your environments. Office 2007 + Exchange 2007 + Sharepoint 2007 = A producttivity powerhouse.

Well Phase 1 of the upgrade - Complete
Phase 2 - The Pastors... This will be a longer task in trying to hunt down our mobile users... I wish there was an easier way to manage mobile users in the areas of upgrades and installs... Anyone have any answers?