Active Directory and Group Policy is commonly used to manage security hardening and desktop standardization. But there is another very powerful benefit of using Group Policy – for increasing productivity of all users. This functionality is commonly not known but it is extremely useful.

All that you have to do is to download the ADM templates for Office 2007 (http://tinyurl.com/nitp6) and Office 2003 (nitp8) from the Microsoft site. Add them to GPMC and then configure the settings as is usually done.

There are more than 1500 settings available. Most of these appear in the Tools - Options menu of individual products. These settings can be centrally controlled using Group Policy. Technically speaking, all settings can be controlled centrally. However, some settings are best managed by individual users. That means we have to choose the settings which are good candidates for centralized control. In fact “control” is not the right word for it. Centralized Productivity Enhancement is a better way of saying it.

Disable irritants or inconvenient settings
Let me give you an example of an inconvenient setting. When a new Excel workbook is created, there are three sheets by default. In majority of cases, only the first sheet is used. The second and third sheets are typically blank. It does not increase the file size. But it creates long-lasting confusion for sure. Months later, nobody really knows whether all sheets have information. This problem is compounded by the fact that we don’t rename the sheets to more meaningful names.

As you can now see, it is a small but widespread problem. Using Group Policy you can solve this instantly. How?
Change the setting of Default Sheets created from 3 to 1. That’s it.

Here is another example about Word and Outlook. When a Word attachment is opened in Outlook, it opens in the full screen Reading View. Most users do not seem to like this behavior. Further, most of us don’t know where the setting to disable this behavior is. The option is, of course, there in Tools Options (Office 2003) or File – Word Options (Office 2007). But would it not be so much simpler to just shut off the feature globally using Group Policy?
Here is how you do it…

Increasing productivity proactively
Here is another example, which can save thousands of man hours across the organization.
As you may know, Office 2007 charts have a new feature called Chart Templates. Most users need to create charts which conform exactly to internal reporting needs. Each user has to spend a lot of time in customizing these charts manually and repeatedly (every week, month, quarter, etc). This is very significant duplication of work.

Office 2007 provides a new feature called “Save as Template” for all charts. The idea is simple. Make a chart and customize it as needed. Once the customization is done, save it as a template.
Next time you want a similar looking chart, you can use the template. This saves you from all the trouble of customizing the chart every time you create a new one.

A similar feature existed in earlier versions of Office. It was called “User Defined” Chart. But the chart customization data was not saved as a separate file. Due to this, user defined customization could not be shared easily.
Now, Office 2007 saves these templates as separate files (.CRTX). These files can be shared using a template repository stored on a server. This path can be set using Group Policy.

Let us put all this together and see how we can perform Corporate Standardization of Charts.

1. Create custom charts as required. This should be done by person(s) who are expert at Chart creation and customization.

2. Collect such templates and store them on a server share.

3. Configure read-only access to all users on this share.

4. Configure the Chart Templates Server Location setting in the Office 2007 – Graph Settings section of Group Policy.

5. Educate users to make sure that they use the relevant templates instead of trying manual customization. That’s it.

Further thoughts
Here are some more useful examples.

• Disable Live Preview and Preview of Fonts in the Fonts dropdown on PCs which have lower configuration. This increases the performance of Office 2007.
  
• Configure commonly used shares in Windows XP My Places or Vista File Favorites based upon the department of the user.
  
• Increase the Number of Documents in Recent File List. In Office 2007, this limit has been increased to 50 from 9 in earlier versions. This helps users find recently used files quickly and saves repetitive navigation effort.
  
• Measurement Unit (inches, cm, points, etc) can be changed to suit your business needs.
  
• Use Cleartype setting must be enabled. It makes text on laptop and LCD screens crisper and easier to read – thus reducing eye strain. This setting may not be enabled on many laptops because users do not know about it.
  
• Office Diagnostics Helpdesk URL usually points to Microsoft Support page. You can change the setting to point it to your internal helpdesk.

There are many more settings. Due to lack of available space, I cannot explain all those. But the best way is to go through all available settings, find the relevant ones and implement them.