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Office 2007 Application Use Tracking

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A really good way to prove the value and usefulness of Office 2007 in your business is to run a pilot install with a small number of users.  During the Pilot, you can find out in-depth information about the way Office is used, compatibility with other applications, and what the users think about Office 2007.

Office is the tools set that Information Workers use to get the bulk of their jobs done.  This is generally understood – but how much time is really spent by users in Office?  This would be a useful statistic to find out during the Office 2007 pilot install in your organisation.

I’ve come across a tool from FruitfulTime that keeps track of which applications are run on a PC, and for how long.  Check it out here https://www.fruitfultime.com/products/productivitymeter/personal/fruitfultime-productivitymeter-personal-edition.php

You can download a free trial version for 30 days.

Using a tool like this – you could find out what percentage of active computer time a user spends in various Office applications (and other applications too, of course).  This can then be extrapolated to the entire workforce to get some big numbers to support decisions related to Office 2007 readiness.

For instance, if you find that users spend 50% of their active working time in Outlook – it makes A LOT of sense to train and educate the workforce in Outlook 2007 features.  This could also help build a business case that if a user is 15% “more productive” in Outlook 2007 then the value of upgrading to Office 2007 can be quantified easily with the help of Fruitfultime!

In these times of cost cutting – having users run Office 2007 will allow your most important asset (your people) to be more productive.  Office 2007 is more productive, creates better looking documents, is easier to use, and is more fun for users.  These facts are proven repeatedly in both Microsoft and independent analyst studies.  But you should prove it for your business and with your people.   So, I’d recommend that you consider this tool and the information it provides as part of your Office 2007 pilot or evaluation.

Below is a shot of my usage after 36 minutes of using the evaluation copy of FruitfulTime, and has Outlook 2007 as my most used product.

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