Fun with Meeting Workspace

A Meeting Workspace site, what is it? 

Its a Web site that is a repository for all the information and materials needed for one or more meetings. You can set up a Meeting Workspace site when you create a meeting invitation in Microsoft Outlook 2010. The subject, the attendee names, the date, the time, and the location from the meeting request are added to the Meeting Workspace site automatically by Outlook.

The first time you create a Meeting Workspace for a meeting, you must add the Meeting Workspace command to either the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) or the ribbon.

 

The internet is filled with blogs showing how to work with meeting workspaces and how to add the appropriate ribbon button to outlook to use/create meetings workspaces via outlook and they all look similar to the following:

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How to integrate with Microsoft Outlook 2010

To add the Meeting Workspace command to the QAT, do the following:

1. Open a meeting item.
2. On the meeting window, click the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar arrow, and then click More Commands.
3. In the Choose commands from box, click Commands Not in the Ribbon.
4. In the list of commands, click Meeting Workspace and then click Add.

Add a command to the ribbon To add the Meeting Workspace command to the ribbon, do the following:

1. Open a meeting item.
2. On the meeting window, click the File tab.
3. Click Options.
4. Click Customize Ribbon.
5. In the Choose commands from box, click Commands Not in the Ribbon.
6. In the list of commands, click Meeting Workspace, then in the Customize the Ribbon lists, click the tab and group into which you want to put the command, and then click Add. 

Note: These steps are required only one time. After you add the Meeting Workspace command one time, it appears in all meeting requests that you open.

 

More info can be found here: Use Meeting Workspaces to organize meetings
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However that is also where it all stops....

With out going into all the endless tweaks that can be done for the actual workspace in SharePoint or endless lists of shortfalls e.g. cannot save content in template, 'folder 1' losing instance id from webparts, webparts losing there settings after saved as template to name but a few.

Even before we get to any of the wonderful things, what if 10% of Contoso's staff fell asleep during the office 2010 training and don't know how to enter the URL to start using Meeting Workspace for the first time or perhaps they are lazy or the people upstairs just don't trust end-users... well then we have an issue of how to insure that everyone is using the right URL(s).

The fix is actually very simple, they way outlook knows what SharePoint Meeting Workspace it is bound to is stored in the end-users registry settings. This setting can be preconfigured and pushed to all desired machines on the domain or can even be exported to be run by individuals.


HKEY_USERS Hierarchy:

Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Meetings\Profile\

Name:

MRUInternal

Type:

REG_SZ

Data: (e.g.)

https://contoso.forums.co.za/|Meetings Workspace|1033|
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}#1ContosoExcoForumTemplate|Contoso Exco Forum Template||

Now everyone is on the same page and the magic of collaboration can begin in full swing.