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I am getting well out of my “superuser” depth here and would love some support.

At work we have an Excel workbook (*.xls format circa Office 2003) which maintains our “engineers” timesheet. This handles what events we are doing across the year and how many “work units” it is.

As far as a workbook goes, it is fairly simple with just a few =SUM(range) cells and some linked across sheets (12 sheets, one for each month)

It is stored on a server, in a folder that provides “management” with full access and “engineers” with read-only access. The workbook itself is read-only for “engineers” and full access for “management”. I think these permissions are controlled through Active Directory. The workbook is protected with a password, assumingly to allow “management” to edit it even if they are working at a terminal logged in as an “engineer”. This protection prevents “engineers” from going to certain cells to see formulae and therefore editing them.

The workbook has a macro which saves and closes it ten minutes after opening. This is to stop other “management” from being locked out by any one person who has logged in with editing privileges.

I hope this is making sense to someone... :S

Now then, we have Microsoft Small Business Server 2008. We have a shiny new web-based login for when we are offsite so we can get to Exchange webmail and our internal site (which uses Sharepoint 3.0).

“Management” would like to be able to publish this timesheet automatically after changes (they don’t want to have to do anything different to what they are currently doing) so that using an iPhone “engineers” can check on it while out of the office.

I am currently having a look at “Excel Services” for Office 2007 on TechNet but I am not sure if I am running down the right garden path at the moment.

< EDIT>

This seems to suggest that I have to have Sharepoint Server 2007, with no mention of Sharepoint 3.0...

... "MOSS builds on WSS by adding both core features as well as end user web parts" - Wikipedia entry for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) this is not good news...

"...and using the ASP.NET APIs, web parts can be written to extend the functionality of WSS." Wikipedia entry for Windows Sharepoint Services. Could this bring back what I need? Is this good news? Do I need to start learning ASP.NET?

This link here implies that we need MOSS to do what I want and the bosses say we aint' getting it. What are some cool things you can do with SharePoint 2007?

Back to the drawing board. < /EDIT>

Please could someone suggest some “further reading” for me to help point me in the right direction or to put me back on the right track. Many thanks. I will try to keep this up to date with how I get on.

Community
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It's time to lobby mangement to retire the spreadsheet. While fashionable in the 90's, it's a whole new millenium. Take a look at this link (Windows SharePoint Services Applications Template: Employee Scheduling) for a time tracking sharepoint application. It would be one thing if you were lobbying to implement sharepoint, this is just to start using it.

Jim B
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You could just publsih it in a Sharepoint document library. If I'm not mistaken, SBS has a builtin CompanyWeb Sharepoint site that has a document library. You just need to allow access to CompanyWeb through your firewall to allow users to access it from outside of the office.

joeqwerty
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  • Yes, that does work to an end. And we have remote access to CompanyWeb, however the workbook is still in workbook form which the phone users doesn't work. –  Dec 23 '09 at 15:22
  • You can publish it as a web page to the Sharepoint document library. There's also an option to republish it every time it's saved. Granted I'm using Office 2007 and MOSS 2007, but I'm sure Sharepoint in SBS 2008 has similar functionality and options. – joeqwerty Dec 23 '09 at 16:03