Drag & Drop Office Sync and Offline support for SharePoint

On your way to your next meeting. Relaxed in the train, coffee, the newspaper and ready to make the last changes to a proposal for your important meeting. Your laptop fired up and than you realize you forgot to download the document from your SharePoint project site. Do you recognize a situation like this or when you are in another location without internet access? DigiLink Revelation synchronizes all documents of SharePoint sites that are important to you automatically in the background. Whenever you need a document; it is there!

Sync SharePoint with your iPhone? Click here.

Solution overview
DigiLink Revelation is an easy-to-use and inexpensive software program that lets mobile users synchronize off-line data with Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services. Revelation allows users to store SharePoint products and technologies files on their laptops that can be updated off-line. Files are then flagged for automatic two-way synchronization when a user comes back on-line.

Revelation’s interface is familiar to SharePoint products and technologies users, and presents a list of files with relevant properties such as modification dates and check-in and check-out status. Revelation can synchronize with multiple SharePoint Products and Technologies sites and presents two views of the data: the server view, which shows all the data on the SharePoint server and allows the user to interact directly with the server on-line; and a local view, that lets the user access those SharePoint products and technologies files stored locally.

BUSINESS ADVANTAGES

Given the proliferation of laptop usage in business, Revelation is an enabler for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. Because it is inexpensive and simple to deploy, now the entire company can effectively utilize a SharePoint Products and Technologies installation, not just desktop users.
Because Revelation is so simple to use, laptop users will actually use it. Revelation will increases company effectiveness and benefit all users .
Revelation’s file management interface is almost identical to SharePoint and does not require user training. The cost benefits for an IT roll-out across a large company are considerable.
Desktop users of SharePoint Products and Technologies benefit from Revelation because it can automatically update the WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 servers with changes to local files without the desktop user having to keep track of changes.
All Revelation users can add files and folders to the SharePoint Products and Technologies server by just dragging and dropping. This ease of use improves individual productivity and also the effectiveness of the SharePoint installation. Adding new documents to the SharePoint site is a matter of “drag-and-drop”.

TECHNICAL ADVANTAGES

The Revelation application resides on the client, not the server, which confers several advantages, namely:
Revelation has zero impact on the SharePoint configuration. The SharePoint administrator does not need to make allowance for the deployment of Revelation.
Revelation does not need a separate server, which saves on installation time, ongoing management, and costs.
Roll out of Revelation can scale from a single computer to thousands at a time. There are no The Revelation application resides on the client, not the server, which confers several advantages, namely:
Revelation has zero impact on the SharePoint configuration. The SharePoint administrator does not need to make allowance for the deployment of Revelation.
Revelation does not need a separate server, which saves on installation time, ongoing management, and costs.
Roll out of Revelation can scale from a single computer to thousands at a time. There are no implications whatsoever, so installation is easy.

The application is self-repairing. Revelation keeps a small local store of data that takes its “cues” both from the SharePoint server and the user’s own local data. This means that the IT department does not have to support a complicated application in the user base. If the user, euphemistically speaking, messes up his or her computer, one push on the “reset” option and Revelation will put the whole application back on track.

The Revelation interface has discrete yet clear indicators for all the data it displays. There is no ambiguity as to what files are to be transferred or synchronized. Similarly, all the files in folders can be synchronized or transferred to the laptop with one click. The clear indicators mean that, in this case, any files added to the server, post synchronization, are instantly apparent and can be added to the laptop.

Revelation confers users no more and no less system privileges than they enjoy using SharePoint through the Web interface. This means, for example, users cannot delete files they are not entitled to delete.
Revelation is fully Unicode compliant and works with international character sets. This is especially useful for larger corporations that want to deploy Revelation in all their SharePoint installations worldwide.

File properties can be modified off-line. The ease of updating this metadata is particularly useful since adequate documentation of SharePoint entries is an important step in maintaining a productive installation.

TIME STORE

What about the ability to restore data? Simplicity is crucial because this is where users get confused. There are two scenarios.

The user had a complete system failure and wants to restore all their data from the TimeStore. This is 1000/0 automatic. You will recall that when the user entered their username and password when they first set-up their account, the system downloaded a readme automatically. In the same way, if a user re-enters their username and password and their local data is all missing, the system will automatically restore into the local store vault all the data from the TimeStore.
The user has updated some data in the TimeStore or inadvertently deleted a file they wished to keep. The user simply runs the application and selects Restore and they will be presented with a simple click interface to restore any file from their vault. They can even select the file on any specified day in the past. It will put the file back where it originally came from and if that folder had been deleted it will create it for them.

EVALUATION

If you like to receive an evaluatiopn copy of DigiLink Revelation 2009, please send us an info@officeapplications.eu.

PURCHASE

Digilink Revelation for SharePoint Web Part can be purchased from your local SharePoint partner or from the Digilink website. Recommended list price: 45 Euro or 35 GBP for a single user license, excl. VAT. Attrractive volume pricing available on request.

Digilink in Education

Over 1 million licenses are in use wiuthin the Education sector.DigiLink and the Bridge Incubation Group designed a special program for the Eductaion sector.

In the Netherlands, education can benefit from the nationwide agreement with APS-IT diensten, SLBdiensten and SURFdiensten.The products are also available as a user single license from Slim! or SurfSpot.

RM Plc. and Glow

With over 800,000 copies of the Revelation software, the largest Digilink customer. RM Plc. was awarded the contract for Glow (formally known as Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN) National Intranet project) in 2006. Glow is a major educational ICT project funded by the Scottish Executive. Under the five year, £37.5 million project, all 32 Local Authorities, over 3,000 schools and over 800,000 education users plus parents will have access to Glow. It will be the world's largest national educational intranet and will have far-reaching implications for learning and teaching in the wider community.

“Digilink was easy to work with and collaborated with our engineering to develop a specification that met all of our requirements, including the development of the Apple based client, which was essential due the mix of Mac’s and PC’s in education.” Tim Pearson, CEO, RM Plc.