Microsoft Document Connection for Mac is a surprise bonus application delivered in Office 2008 SP2 and Ofiice 2011 It makes it easier to work with files that are located on a SharePoint site or Microsoft Windows Live SkyDrive.

It has a pretty standard Mac OS X user interface, with a toolbar and navigation pane, and the individual sites or libraries accessible in the main part of the screen. You can Create new files, add existing files from your local file system, open files for editing or check them in or out. You can navigate through locations by using the navigation bar, and then save files and locations to the navigation pane. A control that looks like a kind of breadcrumb shows the exact location within the hierarchy of a site at the top of the main screen underneath the toolbar. You can click this control to navigate




Its a very simple application, but it proves that the browser isnt the universal answer to everything. I like that it remembers my SharePoint credentials in the keychain, and has extensive keyboard shortcuts. I dont like that its only for file access - its analagous to but different to the web folders application for Windows. Theres no indication of a broader mac encompassing SharePoint application environment in this application. Its more of a utility.

SharePoint Authentication

Once I found the Preferences and selected 'Enable Basic Authentication' it started to work for me. You can double click a name and change it, although its very un Mac like - opening a dialog box rather than just making the name editable. Once you succeed it trundles through a refresh cycle and you can use the SharePoint - its a bit like using CuteFTP or any other visual FTP tool.

Selecting a document allows you to click the check out button, which downloads the document to a local cache and opens it. The application does quite a good job of keeping track of whats been downloaded and uploaded and tries to make this part of SharePoint work well.

This article describes how to use Microsoft Document Connection to connect to a SharePoint site.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2224165

Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Document Connection for Mac

There are quite a few keyboard shortcuts

Connect to a SharePoint site - ⌘+K
Sign in to an Office Live Workspace - ⌘+L
Open a file for editing - ⌘+O or ⌘+DOWN ARROW
Open a file as read-only - ⌘+OPTION+O
Add a file from your computer to the server - ⌘+SHIFT+U
Create a new file from a template - ⌘+N
Move forward - ⌘+]
Move back - ⌘+[
Open folder - ⌘+DOWN ARROW

Tweet Follow @Ironcove

Tags: apple, office 365, sharepoint , online, mac, document , connection, skydrive