Page 91 - Using MIS

Q6 How Can You Use Collaboration Tools to Manage Shared Content? 59
Permission-Limited Activity

With SharePoint (and other version control products), each team member is given an account
with a set of permissions. Then shared documents are placed into shared directories, some-
times called libraries. For example, on a shared site with four libraries, a particular user might
be given read-only permission for library 1; read and edit permission for library 2; read, edit,
and delete permission for library 3; and no permission even to see library 4.

Document Checkout
With version control applications, document directories can be set up so that users are required
to check out documents before they can modify them. When a document is checked out, no
other user can obtain it for the purpose of editing it. Once the document has been checked in,
other users can obtain it for editing.
Figure 2-19 shows a screen for a user of Microsoft SharePoint 2013. The user is checking
out the document UMIS 8e Chapter 2. Once it has been checked out, the user can edit it and
return it to this library. While it is checked out, no other user will be able to edit it, and the user’s
changes will not be visible to others.
With SharePoint, Microsoft manages concurrent updates on office documents (Word,
Excel, etc.) and documents need not normally be checked out. In Figure 2-19, the user is check-
ing out an Acrobat PDF, which is not an Office document.

Version History
Because collaboration involves feedback and iteration, it is inevitable that dozens, or even hun-
dreds, of documents will be created. Imagine, for example, the number of versions of a design
document for the Boeing 787. In some cases, collaboration team members attempt to keep track
of versions by appending suffixes to file names. The result for a student project is a file name like
Project1_lt_kl_092911_most_ recent_draft.docx or something similar. Not only are such names
ugly and awkward, no team member can tell whether this is the most current version.
Collaboration tools that provide version control have the data to readily provide histories
on behalf of the users. When a document is changed (or checked in), the collaboration tool re-
cords the name of the author and the date and time the document is stored. Users also have the
option of recording notes about their version. You can see an example of a version history report
produced by SharePoint 2013 later in the chapter in Figure 2-33 (page 78).

Figure 2-19
Checking Out a Document