Using SkyDrive Pro with SharePoint
SkyDrive Pro is part of Office 2013 (Standard or Professional
edition) or an Office 365 subscription that includes Office
applications. SkyDrive Pro replaces SharePoint Workspace. SkyDrive Pro
is used to create a synchronized copy of a SharePoint library in the
SharePoint folder of your home directory (%userprofile%\SharePoint).
The SharePoint folder is displayed under Favorites in the Windows
Explorer and has the naming convention <site name> - <library name>, as shown in Figure 1.
To create a synchronized copy of a document library, in the browser,
navigate to the document library, and then, on the global navigation
bar, click Sync. After you sync a library, you can access all the files
within it from Windows Explorer and Office, even if you don’t have an
Internet connection. A SkyDrive Pro icon is provided in the Windows
system tray, with which you have easy access to the SkyDrive Pro menu,
as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. The SkyDrive Pro menu in the Windows system tray can be used to start the Sync Library Wizard.
Using Office Web Apps with SharePoint
Office Web Apps enables you, when using a supported web browser on a
computer or mobile device, to view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
and OneNote files. OWA can be used by Exchange Server 2013 and Lync
2013, as well as by SharePoint 2013, URL-accessible file servers, and
possibly in the future, third-party document stores, such as Oracle
Universal Content Management (UCM) and EMC’s Enterprise Content
Management (ECM) Documentum products. This means that even though you
might not have SharePoint installed within your organization, you might
want to install OWA so that you can use it with Exchange Server and
Lync to render documents. However, there are license implications in
this scenario.
When you store files in SharePoint Online with Office 365, or if you
store files in SkyDrive, then Microsoft has its own installation of OWA
so that you can view, create, and modify those files.
Unlike SharePoint 2010, OWA is no longer a service application. It
is now packaged as a separate product and installed on its own set of
servers (a farm). This allows you to scale, manage, and maintain Office
Web Apps as a separate entity without affecting your installation of
SharePoint. The separation of Office Web Apps from SharePoint 2013 also
frees the Office Web Application team to enhance the product
independent of SharePoint. It is also licensed separately from
SharePoint licenses.
There is no licensing required for viewing documents in SharePoint
2013; however, if you want to use OWA to create or modify documents
that are stored in SharePoint 2013, you will need to purchase licenses.
Some improvements that you will see if you use Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2013 include the following:
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Documents can be viewed in full-screen mode or by using web parts.
However, Visio is not part of Office Web Apps, so you should use Visio
Services to display Visio files.
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Not-so friendly URLs are removed.
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Multi-authoring is now available with PowerPoint and Word, in addition to OneNote and Excel.
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When a user pauses the mouse over the item on the search results
page in SharePoint, OWA displays a preview of the item’s content.
Note
If your SharePoint Server farm has been integrated with Office Web
Apps Server and Excel Web App, the features available in Excel Services
will depend on how Excel Web App has been configured. Excel Web App
runs in one of two modes:
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SharePoint view mode. In this mode, Excel Services is used to view workbooks in the browser.
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Office Web Apps Server view mode. In this mode, Excel Web App is used to view workbooks in the browser.
To integrate Office Web Apps Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013, follow these steps:
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Install and configure SharePoint Server 2013.
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Install either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Server 2012 on the servers where you plan to deploy OWA.
These
servers do not need access to a SQL server, because it does not create
any databases. You cannot install Exchange Server, SharePoint, Lync,
SQL, or any version of the desktop Office programs on the same servers
on which Office Web Apps is installed. If other products that are
installed on the same servers as Office Web Apps use web services, they
cannot use port 80, 443, and 809.
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Activate Web Server Role, Application Server Role, and Ink and Handwriting Services Feature on the OWA servers.
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Deploy Office Web Apps Server 2013 using the guidance provided at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219455.aspx.
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Bind the SharePoint Server 2013 farm to the Office Web Apps Server
2013 farm by using the Windows PowerShell New-SPWOPIBinding cmdlet on
one of the servers in your SharePoint farm, as documented at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431687.aspx.
-
Now, you can view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files using a web browser on computers and mobile devices.
Office Web Apps uses a shared XML configuration file called
Farm-Settings.xml for the farm, and then each server in the farm has
its own Machine_Name.xml file.
Once OWA is installed on a server, there are no visible signs on the
Start menu that it is installed. Therefore, other administrators in
your organization might incorrectly identify the OWA server as a
candidate for a clean install of another product or business purpose
that they can use the server for. To manage Office Web Apps, you use
Windows PowerShell.
