Publishing Microsoft Office Links from SharePoint

You can configure MOSS to publish explicit links to sites and libraries, in addition to having it maintain the list of My SharePoint Sites. You can target these links to audiences, AD distribution and security groups, or anyone who has access to the site the link points to. The links that you publish here ultimately find their way into the Open and Save dialog boxes along with those from your My SharePoint Sites list. Targeting a link to users and groups that have access to the team site gives new site users a great way to navigate to libraries within a site by using the Open and Save dialog boxes in Office applications.

Figure 2: Publishing links to Office applications. Click to expand.

You maintain the list of published links by using the Published links to Office client applications option from Shared Services Administration, as shown in Figure 2. The list of links specified here is stored in the SharedListSync table in the Shared Services database. When you create a link in this list, you can specify whether the link is for all users or for targeted users by specifying audiences, AD groups, or members of the team site to which the link relates.

The connection between Office applications and the links that SharePoint maintains is initiated from the user's My Site. When the user visits My Site, SharePoint checks whether a current connection exists to any My Site and, if it does, whether the connection is to the same site the user is currently viewing. SharePoint makes this determination by interrogating the local registry using the PortalConnect12.PersonalSite.1 or PortalConnect.PersonalSite.1 ActiveX control, which is installed with Office 2007 and Office 2003, respectively.

Figure 3: Setting default My Site. Click to expand.

The registry subkey that's interrogated for Windows XP is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Portal\PersonalSiteURL. If the subkey value is missing or doesn't point to the site you're viewing, you're given the option to make the site your default My Site, as shown in Figure 3. Setting the default site brings up a dialog informing you that Office can remember your My Site in order to interact with it from Outlook and when opening and saving files. If you continue, the registry subkey value is set to your My Site URL. This URL then acts as the conduit through which your "My SharePoint Sites" are populated for Office application use, as I explain a little later.

SharePoint creates another registry value at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\office\12.0\Common\Open Find\Places\UserDefinedPlaces\PersonalSite\Path to show the My Site location in the Open and Save dialog boxes of Office applications. When you bring up the Open or Save dialog boxes in any Office 2007 application or right-click a recipient in Outlook 2007 to bring up the Persona menu, the application determines whether a connection to My Site has been established. The application looks for the PersonalSiteURL value in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Portal\ registry subkey. When this value exists, the application looks in the same subkey for a value called LinkPublishingTimeStamp. This value determines whether Office will ask SharePoint for an updated list of links. Office updates its links once a day, but you can force it to update by removing the LinkPublishingTimeStamp value.

Figure 4: Links written to registry. Click to expand.

When an Office application's links need to be updated the application calls the PublishedLinksService web service's GetLinks method, which stores the updated links in the registry subkey HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Server Links\Published\My Site, as shown in Figure 4. Each value in this subkey represents a link of some sort, and how the value is used depends on the LinkType value associated with the key. The key in Figure 4 will find its way into Outlook for synchronization using the stssync protocol. The Profile Site link subkey, also visible in Figure 4, triggers the View My Site option in the Persona menu. Links for Open and Save dialog boxes are created on disk at Windows_profile\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\My SharePoint Sites and subsequently displayed in the dialog boxes, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: File Open/Save links. Click to expand.

It might not be immediately apparent to end users, but Office and SharePoint have some neat integration points. By understanding and using these integration points when implementing SharePoint, you'll draw the best experience and maximum value from your investment in this technology. Putting thought into areas such as how best to grant access rights to team sites can increase the usefulness of Office applications in conjunction with SharePoint.