Document Mgt Roll-up: Google Docs Editing in 45 Languages, SP Gets Outlook Integrator

By David Roe (@druadh20) Mar 8, 2011

Google continues to develop its Google Docs offering this week with the addition of mobile editing capabilities in 45 languages, SharePoint gets an Outlook integrator, metadata use and misuse explained, while AuraPortal offers integrated BPM and document management.

Google Docs Mobile Editing

This week from Google, we have the news that it is offering users the ability to edit Google Docs in 45 languages from their mobile phone.

This is the latest upgrade to Google Docs, which is constantly adding to its long list of capabilities and taking what is effectively a document and editing tool — albeit a very effective one — and bringing it a step closer to offering the capabilities now available with many office suites.

You may recall that the mobile editing functionality was unveiled in November and offers Android and iPad/Phone users document editing capabilities, as long as they had the device running.

To start editing, users visit the document on their mobile browser and start editing then and there. The difference, this time, is that you can do it in one of 45 global languages, extending not only the market for Google Docs, but giving more credence to Google’s claims that its Docs can be accessed and used anywhere.

For now, you can edit documents on Google Docs via mobile devices, but you can't create new files. Check out the blog.

Outlook Integrator for SharePoint

Also this week, we came across another SharePoint-Outlook integrator, which follows hot on the heels of the one that was released by harmon.ie in October.

This one is from SharePointBoost (news, site), a Beijing-based company that is now used in 40+ companies across the globe — the company says — and which specializes in the development of SharePoint web parts.

This one aims to resolve the problems that storage and email management poses in SharePoint and enables users to take email messages and their attachments, or either element individually, and move them into a SharePoint document repository with metadata that can be set by the user.

With the multiple functions, the web part enables bulk selection followed by drag-and-drop, meaning users keep associated email files together, or take selected files and carry out the same process.

As the email messages associated with attachments are often superfluous, users can also select the attachments on their own and move them without having to take the whole message as well.

There is a whole list of other possibilities with this and shortcuts that users can apply to make email management in SharePoint easier. Interested in more?

Metadata Use, Misuse

And speaking of metadata and document management, if you have ever been confused by metadata and is uses, it seems you are not the only one.

According to a recent article by Chris Wright, which appeared here over the past week, while most users understand the principle of metadata and how it should be used, not a lot of them are using it, making the whole concept in document management a bit untapped.