Greenville County and Open Office, Beginning Stages... Currently - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Greenville County and Open Office, Beginning Stages...  Currently Running Microsoft Office 2003 on all County PC's.  Began preparing for Office 2010 upgrade.  Review of Budget prompted search for even more ways to cut costs.  Soon learned that many employee positions within the County offices do not use or require the full version of Microsoft Office.  Left us with the question, “what cost cutting alternatives do we consider without sacrificing quality?”

What to Consider Open Source vs. Proprietary OpenOffice source code is open and available for the public to view, change and customize. Purchase Cost OpenOffice – FREE! Future Upgrade Costs OpenOffice – FREE!

Greenville County IS Testing Process...  Trained IS Help Desk and Project leaders on Open Office suite.  During our pilot program, both MS Office and OpenOffice were installed on all Information Systems' PC's.  Changed the default program for opening all Office documents to the OpenOffice program to guarantee max amount of testing.  Changed the default file format for saving documents to the Microsoft Office standard to keep documents compatible with the rest of the county departments.  Used MS Exchange Outlook Web Access for email, calendar and contacts.

Facts we Discovered... •OpenOffice can be used for FREE, for any use, whether domestic, commercial, educational, private, or public. •OpenOffice complies with the International Organization for Standardization. •OpenOffice is compatible with Microsoft Office. It will allow users to view and edit Microsoft files, as well as save OpenOffice documents with Microsoft compatible file extensions. •OpenOffice Databases (Calc and Base) will work with Crystal reports 8.5 and version 11. •OpenOffice writer, calc, and impress documents can be exported as a PDF without purchasing Adobe writer software. •Some users were able to navigate Open Office more easily than Microsoft 2010. Although, most preferred the overall “look” of Microsoft. •Open Office does not have an email/calendar alternative to provide replacement to Outlook.

The Programs MS Office OpenOffice Used for Word (.doc) Writer (.odt) Word processing Excel (.xls) Calc (.ods) Spreadsheets PowerPoint (.ppt) Impress (.odp) Presentations Access (.mdb) Base (.odb) Databases Visio (.vsd) Draw (.odg) Diagrams

Additional Departments Testing and/or now Using OpenOffice and Webmail Auditor's Office  Register of Deeds  EMS Administration  Paramedics  Detention Center Property and Evidence  Greenville Workforce Development, WIA Office  Who's Next? Family Court, Land Development, Tax Office 

Feedback from users thus far... Pros Cons  Cost (Free Programs).  Learning curve  Ability to create PDF documents  No email, calendaring or contact with no additional software. management program.  Works with Crystal Reports.  Some MS Office formatting such as  Interface similar to Office 2003. colors and drawings may be lost in  Can open, modify and save OpenOffice.  Software packages not always documents created in MS Office.  Graphs, calculations, and images, written to be compatible with Open Office ie. State Court Package. all convert correctly from Microsoft  Some users don't like the “look” of to OpenOffice. the program (cosmetic appeal).  Upgrades and release notes  Open Office Base is not a suitable available on Public Wiki. alternative to Microsoft Access

“Open office allows us to edit and save various maps, property layout, and other premise information as a .pdf. We now require the installation of Open Office on every response vehicle to allow paramedics the ability to view these documents [pdf's created in Open Office] containing important information on patients' addresses. By using Open Office we are able to accomplish our mission without investing a fortune in the software.” - Mike Mitchell, Head of Greenville County EMS/ERT Dispatch Unit

Microsoft Outlook Web Access

Benefits:  Using Webmail prevents from having to purchase any Microsoft Office product for the client. An Exchange server and user license is still required.  Includes, Calendar, Contacts List, Tasks, Out of Office, Spell Check, Junk Mail Filter, Date & Time Formatting, Text formatting, Reminders, External Address Book, Search feature, and Archives.  Good for departments who use Email sparingly.  Interfaces with My Vault to allow for multiple personal folders and email storage. Limitations:  No real time sync - User must click on send/receive to check email or will refresh every 10 minutes or so.  Does not have ability to access additional or shared calendars.  No auto-fill for external or internal email addresses. Must add external contacts to address book and either type full email address or choose from contacts.  Does not support PST folders.

Going Forward...  Open Office will be included as part of standard build for all Greenville County PC's going forward.  The full license version of Microsoft Office will be available for those who need it.  Webmail is being considered for departments that do not use email as a primary source of communication, and, for those users specified by Department heads.

Thank you!!! (This presentation brought to you by Open Office Impress )