Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice.Org in a Corporate Environment?
robpoe asks: "I've been working on a rollout plan for OpenOffice.org 2.0 for a medium sized network. This network runs a number of different MS Office versions, and we absolutely must retain the Microsoft Office 97/2000/2002 file formats (for interoperability with the public and other entities). Getting our versions of Office to 2003 is $65k+, so we're looking closely at OOo. The problem is, since OOo keeps track of changes per user, and we have users that move around (and no, Roaming Profiles are not an option for us), and you cannot expect a user to change those preferences on every computer they log in to. Let's hear some great deployment plans for keeping the default file type, and even general rollout plans. How are you doing it?"
"It seems that nobody has done this (or documented it) that I've found. Let's see if we can get a good thing going by documenting a good, easy to manage rollout plan. Oh, and the default for saving files has to remain in Office 97/2k/xp format.
What are you using to deploy OOo automatically on your network. Assume that we have capability of login script (batch files / registry changes), but no SMS/ZenWorks/etc.
What are you using to deploy OOo automatically on your network. Assume that we have capability of login script (batch files / registry changes), but no SMS/ZenWorks/etc.
Elementary, Watson.
Once a user logs on, a logon script mounts his own personal "network drive" from a central file server.
Just configure OpenOffice so that OpenOffice will read (and write) the OO configuration from that personal "network drive".
Yes, a user could still mess up his configuration, but that would only affect himself, not others.
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Why not just keep Office 2000/XP?
While this doesn't address your question, you mention the necessity of using MS office files. Be absolutely sure you are aware of the limitations of importing/exporting MS office documents. Contrary to what a lot of slashdotters imply, the document compatibility is only so-so when working with complex Word and Powerpoint files, which forced me back away from OO.org. Don't get me wrong - I don't like MS Office myself. But when forced to work with MS Office files, it's incredibly difficult to use any other tool.
I imagine it can't be too difficult to build your own distro of OOo that saves in MS Office format by default.
Make an OpenOffice.org BASIC macro that sets the configuration settings. Put the macro in an empty document, and make it autoopen that document on startup only once (also code the document so it closes automatically once it's done).
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
Since you're going to make a fairly large paradigm shift anyway, why not go all the way and centrally host it? Running it over your favorite remote protocol might work fine, it wont bloat or slow down the clients, you can insta-upgrade people to new versions, and the roaming profile requirement evaporates.
If people save to some network share, and their PCs can access that, then there's no problem. Map some printers back to local clients (depends on how you do the remote session, might be LPD, share, or LPT redirect), and people might not ever know they're NOT on the local machine.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
For $65k you should be able to bargain with MSFT somehow. Academia does it by department which should be far less than what you pay... and it is department negoiated, not University wide. In other news, expect a slashdot article in a month stating that "I got fired for installing OO 2.0 on our corp. network".
MS Office doesn't even work with highly complex objects and docs... even between versions or across different computers.
Via group policy you can redirect the users' application data folder to a drive on a file server. Assuming Open Office saves the user configuration in the %user name%\Application Data folder, it should work.
Of course, if you don't already have enough space on your servers; you've got another fight on your hands.
Good luck!
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
We are a much smaller company - at only $8m a year in sales, but here's how we do it:
.xls or .doc for your files.
12-15 users all log into a central server running Fedora Core 3 using thin clients. We currently use the excellent LTSP (www.ltsp.org) packages to accomplish this. Through experience we have found that a Pentium 4 server with about 2 gigs of RAM can comfortably handle up to 15 users or so, more than that and the load gets a bit too heavy. The programs that eat up the most memory and CPU cycles are Firefox, Evolution, Open Office, and Adobe Acrobat. We do allow streaming radio with xmms, because it doesn't eat up too much bandwidth or memory, and our users like it. The desktop clients themselves are old Pentium II boxes with 64mb of ram, no hard drives, and no cd-roms.
All our sales reps use OpenOffice every day to type up their quotes, fax cover sheets, etc. My secretary uses OpenOffice Calc to do spreadsheet work for our government contracts. It's easy to set all your clients to default to MS file formats - go into the File > Save settings and set them to always use
You don't need to use thin clients, however, to use Open Office. We just went the thin client route because it was inexpensive and easy to do with existing hardware. We are planning to upgrade soon so that each user has their own desktop machine running local apps, but still mounting the home directories on the server.
I suppose if it can be done with 15 computers running linux, you could also do it with your Windows boxes. Just make sure they all have the same OO settings, and that they are all set to save in the proper file formats before your users even get a chance to work with it. OO works almost like MS Office - but be prepared for lots of complaining from users who will say "But Microsoft Office didn't work this way" . . .
Be careful about compatibility. The MS Office compatibility in OpenOffice is not all it's cracked up to be - even things like bullets and headings change fonts and spacings during conversions. IMHO it's better for you to work in native formats and send PDF files around.
Why would anyone want to use a text editor that is not vi?
They only solve this problem for EVERY app on your network.
You're basically asking for the features of Roaming Profiles without having to actually implement them.
Why not just keep Office 2000/XP?
This is a valid question that shouldn't have been modded as flamebait. Sure, its an unpopular question considering the /. crowd but, still
valid.
The first option that is usually overlooked in IT is, "Do Nothing". If any software product is meeting a businesses needs then why replace it without a good enough reason. Will the benefits of switching form product A to product C outweigh the cost.
I love new stuff as much as the next guy but, if a product works, even one made by M$, then asking if your company should continue to use it is a question any IT Pro should ask.
There plenty of good reasons to switch to OOo but, don't do it just because it's not a M$ product.
[Gets off soap box]
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
No. Lets say we mount the users' home drive as drive letter H. You can do this with windows policies or a login script. No touching workstations. Then we configure the base install of OO.org to look in H:\ooo-settings\ for all it's config data.
Boom! Unique settings for each user without roaming profiles
Especially the really heavy users of Excel? The ones who build "models"? Don't tell them, but all that "macro" stuff they build? It's essentially a furball of VB. Furball? Yes, because it's been written by somebody who doesn't know how to program. They just keep whacking at it until it works.
And guess what? It doesn't work in OpenOffice.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Here's a thought:
Pay someone else to do it. You're saving $65k, right? Give a (small) portion of that cash to someone familiar with OOo, and have them code the changes that you're after.
Just because it's free software doesn't mean that it's afraid of money. Go ahead and buy the features you need.
Kid-proof tablet..
Are you nuts? Do you really think you're going to get a whole organization to run in that fashion? Do you think end users are going to keep up with thumb drives and live CDs?
I'm not going to belittle you, but that has to be the least feasible idea that I've ever run across as a suggestion for something like this. If the poster really wanted to do it properly, they'd implement roaming profiles, or at the very least, a mounted network share that synchronized at logout. If that was configured correctly, the operation of such a setup would be transparent to any program that accesses files from those directories.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Where is this magical world people are from in which MS Office works out of the box and doesn't require support? I "tech guy" for about 20 small organizations and as of this last invoice 65% of my time is supporting people on MS Office (90% if you count Outlook) because it freezes / craps out / corrupts their files / won't open older versions / won't open newer versions / does weird things where bullets aren't all the same size / messes up multi-column calculations half the time but not the other half of the time / etc.
Do you really work with MS Office installations that don't require support?
All's true that is mistrusted
So the trick is this: when you edit a .DOC file with OOo, convert it to the OOo format (.sxw) as soon as you start. Make sure the format is OK. Keep the file in .sxw format inside the company.
When you need to interface with the outside world, publish the .DOC by saving in this format if needed. If you don't need outside people to actually edit the document, export it from OOo as a PDF, which is read-only, and publish the PDF instead of the DOC.
And remember to edit only the .sxw file.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
I created a Kixtart Net install script to rollout OpenOffice.org 2.0 - The requirements are simply a Domain Admin Account and the ability to access the Default Administrative Shares that Windows automatically creates.
You can Download it at
http://www.pcc-services.com/kixtart/scripts.html
For the default saving into Office filetypes - All of the user settings are saved in XML files and you can edit these files before you roll-out OpenOffice.org. To do this simply adjust the settings on a separate machine, find out what file was modified to see what you need to change in the default installation. For instance I created a menu item for my script to add a "From Gallery" option to the "Insert - Picture" Menu.