Lotus Quickr Template Demo - QPresent
Category NoneIn my second demo, you'll be introduced to QPresent - the collaborative presentation development template for Lotus Quickr 8.0. This one really has had me excited, based on the number of presentations I develop, manage and deliver each year. QPresent's innovations build upon a core capability in Lotus Quickr, namely the ability to upload a Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentation and view it as slide images in the browser. In Lotus Quickr (and QuickPlace before it), you could do this then page through the slides or zoom the presentation. With QPresent, we've plugged in our custom workflow engine, made slide navigation Ajax-enabled to avoid screen refreshes, and -- the big feature -- plugged in a commenting module that lets other users comment on the presentation slide by slide.
Read that again...you can collect comments from your team on every single slide in a presentation, without ever having to email the big bloated PPT file around, and you never have to worry about merging random comments sent in email or versions of a file. And because it's all in a Lotus Quickr place, there's only one copy to worry about. Oh, and it's secure.
You'll see similar commenting models in other templates in the future, and you'll see the flexible, custom workflow engine in about five of them. But slide-specific commenting is one of my favorite features (you can post an overall comment on the presentation as well). The business applications of QPresent are varied, including general team review, executive approvals of public presentations (with the workflow engine plugged in), legal department reviews, globalization and translation services, and more. Any time you've ever wanted to get someone's input on a presentation, QPresent would come in handy. So without further adieu, grab your popcorn, sit back for 19 minutes, and enjoy the QPresent demo. Don't forget to turn up the sound - and please ask questions here...
Comments
What happens if you add slides to the deck? Does it know what comments go with what slides?
Thanks!
-Jeff
Posted by Jeff Berg At 06:31:15 PM On 05/14/2007 | - Website - |
The designed lifecycle of one of these presentation documents is one single iteration of a presentation, the idea being that edits are done after the comments are made...and the original is not edited while comments are being collected.
The technical reason for this is that when you re-upload a PPT file, all the image names change, and as you point out you wouldn't know which comments went with which slides.
So it's a one-trip deal. Potential use cases are:
User uploads a presentation, gets comments, then posts the final version to one of these forms (to use a Workflow) or somewhere else, or gives the presentation.
Hope that helps explain.
Posted by Rob Novak At 07:28:51 PM On 05/14/2007 | - Website - |
I like both the Workflow and the Presentation Comment features. Nice work!
With IBM supporting the Open Document Format (ODF) in Notes 8, will there be support for presentations in that format in the future?
Posted by Steve Smillie At 07:19:08 AM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
Support for Lotus Presentations is also a must ... I agree with @3 Steve.
Posted by John Head At 09:38:20 AM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
- Love the ajax slide movement and comment stuff. Very well designed!
- The workflow setup stuff looks great! Is that something I can add to any form I develop?
Nice work!
Posted by John Head At 10:02:06 AM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Carl Walker At 10:05:31 AM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
@John: Thanks - on the "split this slide" comment, anyone with access can make the comments, but if a new presentation is uploaded (or this one is replaced), a new set of comments has to start. It's a side effect of the way PPT converts to HTML and Quickr grabs it. Each time PPT converts to HTML, it uses a new set of file names for the gifs. There is no metadata on slide numbers, or on "this used to be slide 14 and now it's 31".
@Carl: The upload ActiveX control in the demo is still there - needs to be for integration with MS Office. However you'll be pleased I think when the editor is finalized. It used to be the MS DHTML editor, it'll be something different. You'll still see ActiveX in places where it makes sense - theme creation, imported files.
Posted by Rob Novak At 10:54:16 AM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
Did you know that the old quickplace demo site { Link } has been updated with the quickr code?
Posted by Randy Castle At 02:58:08 PM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Rob Novak At 03:28:44 PM On 05/15/2007 | - Website - |
Also people do not want to be locked to IE - we want the flexibility to use Firefox in a Mac for example or even with Linux. I thought IBM were going fully open platform but in reality we find ourselves again locked into Microsoft.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can you re-consider doing it this way and encourage IBM to use a different method i.e. Not Active X.
Thank you so much!
Posted by Ian At 11:07:09 AM On 05/22/2007 | - Website - |
You're not locked into Microsoft. Firefox works fine with Quickr. Just this standard feature of publishing and automated conversion of Office documents needs the ActiveX component, the same as it's been since QuickPlace 1.0 shipped in March 1999. If you think about the architecture it's what makes sense. Drag a file, make it into a web page. Pretty neat.
I need to point out here that QPresent EXTENDS functionality currently in the product, it doesn't create a new dependency. So if you have a complaint about ActiveX, please do submit a PMR, or let your IBM salesperson know.
The ActiveX controls in Quickr are digitally signed by IBM Corporation - as always. I don't know of a single corporation that uses QuickPlace and blocks ActiveX from this application, and I've worked with hundreds.
I hope IBM comes up with a new method of one-step conversion of Office and for that matter OpenOffice documents, but until that time please see what we've created here as an extension of the current value delivered by IBM.
Thanks. I have forwarded your comment to IBM development management for consideration. I hope you download and try out the templates we develop for free.
Rob
Posted by Rob Novak At 06:32:04 PM On 05/22/2007 | - Website - |
Sorry about my fustration but Active X is a nightmare for us for all sorts of reasons. Users find it hard to download them and we are 20% mac so its just not an option in many cases.
Many of our users use Firefox so from what you are saying they would not be able to import MS Documents as they won't be using Active X. A real shame really.
I am glad IBM are thinking about open document format as we are about to switch to it.
Thank you so much for passing on my suggestions to IBM - lets hope they think about this and provide a viable alternative to Active X. Perhaps a good solution would be to offer both.
We will certainly try Quickr when it becomes available - when is that? In fact is their a public beta anywhere?
I would be happy to speak to IBM but not sure who I should write to! They are a rather large organisation - perhaps there is an email address you could send me...
Many thanks.
Ian
Posted by Ian At 05:51:25 PM On 05/23/2007 | - Website - |
Same thoughts as Ian about ActiveX, having used QP for a couple of years now, it's generally been the ActiveX components that have been the cause of most of my frustrations. Seeing and editing a page, but not having access to the attachments is a headache.
As with the rest of my UK colleagues, my work PC is not run in admin mode, so I can't update plugins without a roll-out from our IT dept and they aren't overly eager to use ActiveX. Running IE emulation of FF is very clever, but a little counter intuitive?
We need to make every effort to have this running smoothly so that no-one is scared off from taking up this new way of team-working. And what I've found internationally - it doesn't take much to put people off something new.
Posted by Tony Waghorn At 04:32:17 AM On 05/24/2007 | - Website - |
Wish we could have used this more when I was with Lotus. The slide commenting thing alone is worth it all.
Very cool.
Thanks guys.
Posted by Keith Brooks At 11:05:50 AM On 06/22/2007 | - Website - |
1) Why can't you mark up the slide directly? I would have loved to see the slide in some sort of ajax/flash/java control where I could click on it to mark up particular sections of the slide?
2) How do you preview builds and animations, since the powerpoint has been converted to HTML?
Posted by Larry C At 12:58:08 PM On 06/27/2007 | - Website - |
Thanks,
Steve
Posted by Steve M At 02:43:44 PM On 06/27/2007 | - Website - |
@Larry - 1) We are leveraging the built-in PPT import function in Quickr/QuickPlace. It in turn leverages Office's HTML converter, which creates graphics for each slide as you see. About the markup on the slide, the scope is wrong - that's a model for only one user to markup, it wouldn't work when you want comments from 20 people. Same problem you have today when someone emails the PPT around - everyone puts their markups in it and someone has to collect, separate and interpret them. 2) You don't get animations and builds with Office's HTML export hence can't have them in Quickr/QuickPlace.
@Steve: So more like a blog...we considered it, and it can certainly be switched around as the code will be available. The design decision to put it above was based on the difference - in a blog, the other comments are part of a "discussion", and reading through them is important to the person about to comment. With this application, we weren't looking to create a conversation about a slide but rather allow an individual to quickly register their comments/edits/etc on the content. So getting to the place where you can comment was more important than seeing the other comments first. Maybe it was 51/49 more important, but that's the reasoning. Again it could be changed.
Posted by Rob Novak At 03:57:19 PM On 06/27/2007 | - Website - |