Friday, April 27, 2012

Office Upload Center

What the heck is Microsoft Office Upload Center?
With Office 2010, Microsoft have changed the way Office 2010 application upload documents to web servers  using office's web integration options. So instead of saving the documents directly to SharePoint (or Skydrive), it create a local copy of the document in the Office Upload Center (in the Office Document Cache*) and then try to upload it to the appropriate web server.


*Office Document Cache (ODC) uses file Synchronization via SOAP over HTTP (FSSHTTP) to help in efficient synchronize of local content with remote web server 

Why go through all this trouble?
With upload center, Microsoft have deployed what they call EFT (Efficient File Transfer), which is not only expected to be next logical step in extended desktop experience but also one of the fundamental steps (quite important) in executing their strategy of capturing "cloud" and "mobile" based computing market. The idea behind EFT is to help users by optimizing the usage of the network bandwidth under various network conditions (think desktop/mobile devices as well as hardwirede/wireless/mobile networks).  
There are multiple aspects of EFT:
  • Incremental Upload: While saving documents in Office Document Cache (ODC), the documents are broken into smaller chunk of data pieces. Everytime the document needs to be uploaded, only the data chunks which have changed need to be exchanged helping previous bandwidth in certain situations. 
  • Adaptive Upload: Any documents opened through the web server can be changed by users and saved back without worrying about the network status. If for any reason the document can not be saved to web server right away (working offline/off-network, web server issues), Office Upload center will keep track of the connection and upload queue and as soon as appropriate connection to the web server can be established, it'll commence exchange of data.
Application of Office Upload Center:
Office Upload center is behind most of the online/offline collaboration functionality which is the among the most exciting features of Office 2010 (plus a web server - SharePoint/SkyLive/GoogleDocs,etc.).  
The advantages and importance of Office Upload Center is best highlighted by SharePoint Workspace 2010:
  • Document incremental sync – Once a document is download to a SharePoint Workspace, any further changes in the document are only incremental (delta data packets) and not the whole document.
  • Documents are identified by their HTTP URL directly on your local PC. This prevents users from getting multiple copies of the same document, with conflicts.
  • Auto-merge – If two users edit a Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint document offline, edits can be merged once they’re back online.
  • Co-authoring – Similar to Auto-merge in preventing conflicts, co-authoring allows two users to edit a Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint document online, in an active, coauthoring session.
  • Adaptive sync – If you are online, edits that you save are synched immediately. If you are working offline, you changes are synched once you are back online.
How to access Office Upload Center:

Snapshots:
1. Task Bar

2. Upload Center

3. Upload Center Setting:
 
4. My Recent Upload

5. Trying to save the document when offline:

6. Notification on Task Bar

7. As soon as I'm on network, Office Upload center does the work for me.








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