Document Collaboration & OS X Server
Hey all!
First time here (and new to servers in general) and I come with a pretty hefty question (I've been to the Mac store, spoken with their business IT professionals, etc. and still have yet to receive an answer), with hopes that someone on here will have a solution!
I work at a small boutique creative marketing agency and am looking for an efficient way for document collaboration. There are 6 of us, all on macs (2009 Macbook Pros), and we'd like to integrate some form of server into our daily workflow.
What is most important is that we can access a single file from multiple locations and be able to edit it and save it in its native form (ie: edit a Word document in .doc form and save it as .doc back on the server). We are currently using GoogleDocs which we hate in that once we need to transfer it to a better editing/presenting platform (.doc) a lot of the formatting is lost.
We'd also need the permissions to allow someone to check in/check out the document. Or at least allow one person to open the file on the server and have it only be able to be accessed as "View Only" or "Read Only" by others when another user is editing it. I know this takes place on many other server types but according to the Business Solution folks at Apple, this does not happen on Mac OS X server. They said that multiple people can open the same document on the server and edit it at the same time (which leads to problems in that overwriting/loss of information can occur...two people editing at the same time and then saving with different edits...only the last saved version will be saved)
Options I've looked into:
MS Document Collaboration w/ Sharepoint
-Sharepoint currently doesn't work with Mac (supposedly it will with MS Office 2010)
-Can we run a Sharepoint server from a Mac Mini w/ OS X server?
Final Cut Server (don't know much about this)
Ideally we'd like to run a Mac Mini with OS X Server and be able to benefit from the it's other advantages in addition to document collaboration...but that's our main sticky point at the moment.
Any information/direction would be tremendously appreciated.
We'd be running this through an Airport Extreme for wireless access.
Thanks!
-Steve
First time here (and new to servers in general) and I come with a pretty hefty question (I've been to the Mac store, spoken with their business IT professionals, etc. and still have yet to receive an answer), with hopes that someone on here will have a solution!
I work at a small boutique creative marketing agency and am looking for an efficient way for document collaboration. There are 6 of us, all on macs (2009 Macbook Pros), and we'd like to integrate some form of server into our daily workflow.
What is most important is that we can access a single file from multiple locations and be able to edit it and save it in its native form (ie: edit a Word document in .doc form and save it as .doc back on the server). We are currently using GoogleDocs which we hate in that once we need to transfer it to a better editing/presenting platform (.doc) a lot of the formatting is lost.
We'd also need the permissions to allow someone to check in/check out the document. Or at least allow one person to open the file on the server and have it only be able to be accessed as "View Only" or "Read Only" by others when another user is editing it. I know this takes place on many other server types but according to the Business Solution folks at Apple, this does not happen on Mac OS X server. They said that multiple people can open the same document on the server and edit it at the same time (which leads to problems in that overwriting/loss of information can occur...two people editing at the same time and then saving with different edits...only the last saved version will be saved)
Options I've looked into:
MS Document Collaboration w/ Sharepoint
-Sharepoint currently doesn't work with Mac (supposedly it will with MS Office 2010)
-Can we run a Sharepoint server from a Mac Mini w/ OS X server?
Final Cut Server (don't know much about this)
Ideally we'd like to run a Mac Mini with OS X Server and be able to benefit from the it's other advantages in addition to document collaboration...but that's our main sticky point at the moment.
Any information/direction would be tremendously appreciated.
We'd be running this through an Airport Extreme for wireless access.
Thanks!
-Steve
Comments
If you are such a small size team and you all work either on Apple's laptops or on iPads, Pages + iWork.com does just fine.
Pages native format will be looking breathtakingly good. Theoretically, there may be some minor compatibility issues, if you save .doc format from Pages. Still, it's way better, than what Google Docs can offer.
P.S. Everything is up side down as soon as you get one single PC or smartphone in your team. There're no decent tools uploading documents from those platforms to iWork.com
Document owners have the ability to set permissions, including a read only option and confirmation of review once complete. Users can see comments from their team members, fostering a deeper sense of collaboration than what traditional document collaboration platforms offer.