Online applications are ideal for collaboration, especially for collaborating with users from multiple locations. These browser based applications offer convenience, mobility among many other advantages. But when you have to depend on a locally installed application, to open a document for example, breaks the flow. Integrating document editing capability within in the browser can offer seamless experience and can make users productive as well as remove the hurdle to have an installed application.

We have seen collaboration vendors like Box.net, Huddle, Knowledge Tree etc offer seamless online document editing experience using Zoho editors. Today, another online collaboration & project management vendor, Glasscubes integrated Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet into their application.

If you upload documents or spreadsheets into GlassCubes documents section, you'll notice an additional option to edit the document.

Choosing the 'Edit Document' option opens the document (including 2007 formats) in the appropriate Zoho Editors. You can make changes to the document and save it back to the Glasscubes application. Thanks to our Remote APIs, Glasscubes users need not have a Zoho account to use this functionality.

Rob Hallums explains this integration on their blog. We'd like to thank GlassCubes for integrating Zoho.

At Zoho, we provide APIs for a good many of our products and they have all been well received. A sample list of our API partners here. The latest one to join the list is Elementool.

Elementool provides web based project management tools for help desk, bug and defect tracking and time tracking tools. Elementool has implemented Zoho's API in their Docs module. All uploaded documents, spreadsheets and presentations to the Elementool's Docs module can now be viewed using Zoho. Not just viewing, you can edit the file too and when you save the file again, all changes get reflected in your uploaded file in the Elementool account.

Such a functionality is useful if you are uploading a lot of your project/work-related documents, spreadsheets & presentations online and want them viewed or edited then and there in the browser itself (instead of downloading each of them and editing them using a desktop application). Try Elementool out and see if it fits your needs.

We have a couple of other API collaborations happening too which we will blog about in the days to come. Stay tuned.

Zoho Sheet underwent an update last week with some cool functionality. Here are the new features in this update:

1. Insert Button:
   
   Buttons which trigger VBA macros can now be inserted into your spreadsheets in Zoho. This opens up a lot of possibilities to create spreadsheet based applications. We would love to see what kind of spreadsheets you create using this. Here is a simple BMI (Body Mass Index) calculator with buttons embedded below. Just fill in your details and hit the calculate button.
   
   
   
   To insert a button, look for "Insert Button" under the Insert icon (plus icon) on the toolbar. You can then assign an existing macro to it or assign a new one by writing a VBA macro or by just recording a macro.
   
   
   
   
2. Full XLSX Support:
   
   Earlier we supported import of xlsx files (Microsoft Excel's file format since 2007). Now we support export to xlsx as well. Our APIs too support this new format.
   
   
3. Time Zone Preference:
   
   We now respect your time zone preference and display the date and time accordingly. TODAY() and NOW() functions will give out the date/time based on your time zone setting. You can set your timezone preference by clicking on "Account Settings > My Account" link available on the top bar. You can also visit http://accounts.zoho.com and set your preferences which will be used across the various Zoho services.
   

Apart from the above, there are some enhancements and bug fixes as well. Refer our What's New page for more information.

PS: Zoho Sheet is now on Twitter. Follow us @zohosheet.

The chat bar you see at the bottom of applications like Zoho Mail, Zoho Business, Zoho Docs does a lot of useful things. Most of them has got to do with your presence status and the bar helps you in chatting live with your contacts who are online. But there's one other important feature - notifications. The little bell icon adds a number to itself whenever there is a new notification.

You get notified for a good many work instances.

1. When you are offline and someone sends you a chat message
2. When someone shares a Zoho document, spreadsheet or presentation.
3. When you upload a file to Zoho Docs
4. When you make a post in a Zoho Discussions forum and someone responds to it. You get notified when you watch someone or a forum too.
5. Users can send a direct notification message (instead of a chat message) to their Contacts / Groups from Zoho Chat



You can see the past notifications history by clicking on the Feeds link.

So, watch the little Notification icon at the bottom-left when you login to Zoho the next time. It might have some important notifications for you :) The chat/presence bar itself will continue to evolve as we have planned for more useful features to be delivered through it.

Zoho Sheet underwent few updates in the last couple of months after our Freeze panes update. Here are the highlights:

XLSX File Format Support

Collaboration Enhancements

When multiple people are collaborating on a spreadsheet at the same time, we now display who is working on which cell. Each collaborator is given a color code, and we highlight the cell which the user is working on using that color. When you hover the mouse over that cell, it displays the name of the collaborator. We have also fixed certain issues in real time collaboration. 

Cell Comment Enhancements

The cell comments user interface has been enhanced. Some pressing issues in cell comments have been fixed as well.

Apart from the above changes, we have done some performance improvements and bug fixes as well. Refer our What's New page for more information.

Rabbit is a web-based operating system that connects people, processes and content, combining the power of social networking into an enterprise environment. A key component of Rabbit is its information sharing capabilities, which let users work on documents they’ve uploaded to Rabbit’s web workspace, and share this with other users. Rabbit has selected Zoho for this because of Zoho's proven ability to provide high levels of functionality and performance, and to provide a smooth transition for enterprise users from working locally on the desktop to working on the web.

All documents, spreadsheets and presentations uploaded and stored in Rabbit can be opened using Zoho. The documents and spreadsheets can be edited and saved back where as the presentations can be viewed. Below is a screenshot of files in Rabbit being opened using Zoho.



New documents and spreadsheets can be created too from inside Rabbit by invoking Zoho Writer and Sheet. This video by the Rabbit team explains the functionality in detail.

Zoho is primarily about working online. We have a great set of online productivity apps which businesses find extremely useful for collaboration. Microsoft SharePoint is ubiquitous in enterprises for content management, but it lacks several advantages that cloud applications like Zoho enjoy.

Today we are pleased to announce Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint that brings the advantages of Zoho online productivity applications to ubiquitous Microsoft SharePoint.

Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint extends the value of Microsoft SharePoint by allowing users to create new documents using Zoho's office suite and then save them directly to SharePoint in Microsoft Office supported formats. Users can view or edit existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations using Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show and save them back to SharePoint.

This video gives a good overview of this add-on.

Installation video is available here. As Zoho applications are served from the cloud, you don't need any installations on desktops to create/view/edit documents. Once you install the add-on for SharePoint server, you can be more productive with just your browser.


Zoho Collaboration on Microsoft SharePoint

Apart from providing editing capability for existing documents, the add-on also provides collaborative editing functionality. Based on sharing permissions already defined in SharePoint, multiple users can collaboratively work on documents/spreadsheets/presentations in real-time. This feature basically brings one of the key advantages of an online office suite to SharePoint.


While collaboratively editing documents, you can also chat with other members using our integrated Zoho Chat.

Data Behind your Firewall

Along with small and medium businesses, we see a good percentage of departments in larger organizations using our productivity apps for collaboration. There are  businesses which prefer keeping their data behind the enterprise firewall. For such organizations, this new add-on brings in the best of both worlds - Collaboration capabilities of an online application while keeping the data behind your firewall.

If you have SharePoint installed in your intranet behind your corporate firewall, you still will be able to view/edit documents using our online applications. After changes, your documents are saved back to your SharePoint server behind your corporate firewall leaving no data on Zoho Servers.

When you open the document, a copy is transferred temporarily to Zoho servers securely. When the document is closed, it is permanently deleted from our servers immediately leaving no data on our side.

Pricing & Availability

Starting today, this add-on is available for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 and 2003 versions. You can try the 30 day evaluation version for unlimited users. After the trial period, it costs $2/user/month on an yearly subscription or $3/user/month for monthly subscription.

If you have already invested in Microsoft SharePoint, this add-on is a great compliment that brings in the advantages of online productivity applications to SharePoint. If you are able to access SharePoint, you'll be able to view/edit documents without having to invest on productivity suites for every desktop in your business.

Additional information is available @ http://www.zoho.com/sharepoint

Please do give it a try and let us know what you think. 

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Microsoft, SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. ZOHO Corp is not affiliated or endorsed by Microsoft Corporation.

In one of my previous posts, I talked about integration between different Zoho Apps expanding on the following integrations.

• Sheet integration with CRM
• Writer & Sheet integration in Zoho Projects
• Meeting & Chat integration in Zoho Show
• Creator Integration in People
• Projects integration in Invoice
• Writer, Sheet & Show integration in Notebook
• Writer, Sheet & Show integration into Wiki
• Chat integration in Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook, Meeting etc