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SharePoint Workspace and the Office Document Cache

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There are three storage mechanisms SharePoint Workspace uses to store data on your local computer. Lists, InfoPath forms, schema, and views are stored in SharePoint Workspace itself, BCS data has its own storage mechanism, and your SharePoint documents are stored in a common Office file store called the Office Document Cache (ODC). The diagram below shows the relationships between the three data stores and the content sources for each.

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The Office Document Cache

SharePoint Workspace, along with other Office 2010 products, uses the Office Document Cache (ODC) for file storage. Files are downloaded and synchronized using a protocol called File Sync via SOAP over HTTP (FSSHTTP). SharePoint Workspace’s use of the ODC and FSSHTTP has many advantages for XML-based Office documents, including:

· Reduced network load

· Faster saves

· Conflict resolution

· Coauthoring

Differential Sync

After initial sync, only document changes are sent between SharePoint and SPW. This reduces bandwidth consumption and server load, while giving the user a more responsive save experience, even when working with very large files.

Collaborating Online and Offline with Coauthoring and Merging

When you’re offline and working with SharePoint documents, other users may be editing the same document, putting it in conflict when you try to sync your changes. SharePoint Workspace and the ODC handle many of these changes automatically for you, by seamlessly integrating your changes with the updated document on the server. When you get back online, your changes will be merged with the new server copy and any changes on the server will appear highlighted green.

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Coauthoring allows multiple users to edit the same document at the same time collaboratively. You will be notified when you open a document someone else is editing, along with easy access to their contact information.

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When the other user makes changes to a section of a document, that section will become locked, shown below. Once the user has completed making changes you will be notified and the new changes can be merged into your work.

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High Volume Synchronization

We’re actively working on increasing capacity limits to optimize throughput, but for now synching a large number of documents can degrade performance.  SharePoint Workspace will first warn you when the number that you’re scheduled to synchronize gets high, and then it will actually change its behavior when the number gets higher still.

If you are syncing 500 or more documents, SPW will give you a warning, which also serves as a heads-up to suggest that you should expect gradually slower performance as the number of documents gets larger.

When you’re about to synch 1800 documents or more, SharePoint Workspace will change its behavior to make sure that you get your documents in a timely fashion.  It will synchronize only headers (metadata about the document) at this point, and will synchronize actual documents only on demand.  When you actually need one or more documents, you can click on them, and SPW will sync them for you on the spot.

There are several ways to reduce the number of documents you have offline, such as deleting unused SharePoint workspaces, disconnecting from unused document libraries, or discarding local copies of documents.

Note that these limitations apply to the ODC only and do not apply to Groove workspaces.

 

Andrew Harris and Jim McCoy

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Hi, nice blog post. Could you confirm what are the versions of Office that allows the differential sync feature ? Only 0ffice 2010 Office 2007 or 2010 (which sounds logical since they are based on XML) Office 2003 ? Thanks

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    This is new functionality - differential sync works between an Office 2010 client and an Office 2010 server.  But we do use differential sync on XML-based Office documents originally created in Office 2007 if they're opened from a 2010 server in a 2010 client.

  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 28, 2010
    Does anybody know, if there is a way to work around this limitations.

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2011
    I wanted to use a SharePoint document library to host Visio stencils. I further wanted to use SharePoint Workspace to take the stencil document library offline. The problem I am encountering is that programatically trying to open the stencil using the VBA code (below) fails when there is no network connection. In other words, Visio does not seem to be aware of the SharePoint Workspace or ODC, local version of the stencil. Application.Documents.OpenEx "192.168.7.55/.../Nicely Named Stencil.vss", visOpenRO + visOpenDocked Similar code works in Microsoft Word where the VBA "open" method pointing to a "web address" will properly open a document from the SharePoint Workspace cache. Is there a different technique I need to use to make this work with Visio? Or will a future release of Visio be SharePoint Workspace aware? Any help/feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tom

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2011
    I wanted to use a SharePoint document library to host Visio stencils. I further wanted to use SharePoint Workspace to take the stencil document library offline. The problem I am encountering is that programatically trying to open the stencil using the VBA code (below) fails when there is no network connection. In other words, Visio does not seem to be aware of the SharePoint Workspace or ODC, local version of the stencil. Application.Documents.OpenEx "192.168.7.55/.../Nicely Named Stencil.vss", visOpenRO + visOpenDocked Similar code works in Microsoft Word where the VBA "open" method pointing to a "web address" will properly open a document from the SharePoint Workspace cache. Is there a different technique I need to use to make this work with Visio? Or will a future release of Visio be SharePoint Workspace aware? Any help/feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tom

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2011
    I wanted to use a SharePoint document library to host Visio stencils. I further wanted to use SharePoint Workspace to take the stencil document library offline. The problem I am encountering is that programatically trying to open the stencil using the VBA code (below) fails when there is no network connection. In other words, Visio does not seem to be aware of the SharePoint Workspace or ODC, local version of the stencil. Application.Documents.OpenEx "192.168.7.55/.../Nicely Named Stencil.vss", visOpenRO + visOpenDocked Similar code works in Microsoft Word where the VBA "open" method pointing to a "web address" will properly open a document from the SharePoint Workspace cache. Is there a different technique I need to use to make this work with Visio? Or will a future release of Visio be SharePoint Workspace aware? Any help/feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tom

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2011
    Does anyone has a workaround for this limitation issue?

  • Anonymous
    September 28, 2011
    Hi Jim, I am sure this may be a common problem, but since Sharepoint2010 hosts a lot more files than "just" Office2010 files, is there a public API or direction on allowing other software file types to use this compression when sending back forth to Sharepoint2010? Thanks, Paul

  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2012
    Where in the Windows 7 file system is the ODC located?

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2015
    I Tried to sync my SharePoint library in to  SharePoint Workspace. but I'm getting ' the contents of" file name" have not been downloaded or have not finished' error. please suggest how can I sync to my local machine.