eXpresso Corporation, which specializes in online community solutions for businesses,  announced that it has launched an updated version of its Excel Offline add-in tool. This solution allows spreadsheet owners and their designated users to access and also edit Excel files using the online, collaborative eXpresso environment.

 

eXpresso’s Excel Offline tool offers a flexible and easy tool for eXpresso users enabling subscribers to upload, store securely and also organize common Microsoft (News - Alert) Excel spreadsheets. The eXpresso collaborative environment is the primary intended mode of use.

 

The Excel Offline add-in provides three new capabilities to the solution including the ability to use the full complement of the native Excel features and capabilities. It allows access to the user’s personal macros, shortcut keys and self-defined toolsets. The third capability is the power to temporarily “check out” a file for use while on the move or when online access is not easily available.

 

The latest version has been designed to be easy to use with a new look and feel besides including several upgrades which enable better integration with the eXpresso online environment.

 

“eXpresso’s Excel Offline add-in adds a great deal of value, as well as control, to our online service.  This upgrade will no doubt make the add-in even more popular,” said George Langan, CEO at eXpresso, in a statement. “Our goal is to provide the most efficient, convenient and productive solution for Excel collaboration and this new version is a valuable step in achieving that objective.”

 

eXpresso’s offline solution secures working on spreadsheets online. In most cases solutions allow making a copy of a download file using “save as” feature. This actually enables users to copy files which are supposed to be confidential.

 

However, eXpresso automatically erases the download version of eXpresso Excel file when a person checks into the service. eXpresso also uploads and saves the changed version on its server in order to preserve the audit trail of downloads.

 

Spreadsheets which are opened offline from the eXpresso environment are locked so that other users cannot edit it. This ensures accountability and security and once the owner has made changes to the eXpresso and closed the spreadsheet the lock is released.

Owners are given the ability to offer privileges to download a file for editing or for viewing. They are also notified when the file is downloaded and once it is returned through uploading the owner is notified again so that he gets a record of changes made from a cell history report. Different versions of the spreadsheets can be compared also to track changes.

 

The updated eXpresso Excel Online add-in has been optimized for Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. It can be downloaded for free from within eXpresso. eXpresso offers secure, hosted online workspaces suitable for business collaboration, beginning with the Excel spreadsheet environment. The eXpresso service enables users to access. share, compare and collaborate on business information from anywhere.