Developing for the Microsoft Office System Jay Schmelzer Group Program Manager – Visual Studio

Agenda Office Development? What is an OBA? Visual Studio 2008 & OBA Development Summary

The past (and, as it happens, the present) –VBA –Add – ins (COM) –Add – ins (Managed Code) The recent history –.NET 3.0 WCF WPF WF –VSTO 2005 SE (VS 2005) 3.0 in VS 2008 Pro and Above Development on the Client

Development on SharePoint 2001 – Tahoe –Webstore –Digital Dashboard –SPS … STS… Confused? 2003 – Now we’re talking –SQL. ASP.NET –Except, no workflow and profiling! 2007 – THE platform –OBA Services –Workflow –Search –Office Servers

Bringing it Together Server Client Workflow state Document Properties and Metadata Calendars, Tasks Document libraries offline List data offline Workflow state Document Properties and Metadata Calendars, Tasks List data updates Excel model publishing InfoPath form publishing Smart client customizations

Native Client Integration (free when you build on SharePoint) Lists –Export to Excel –Access synchronization –Item versioning –RSS Feeds & Alerts Calendars –Link to outlook Documents –Offline sync with outlook –Document management & status Workflows –Workflow notification bar –Interactive forms display Tasks –Offline sync with outlook –Export to Visio Content Types –Document Property Panel Data connection libraries –Browse from Excel –Central updates

OBA Made Simple Office Client SharePoint Server++ LOB System Communications and Collaboration Content Management Business Intelligence Search Workflow and Portal SOASOA

Some Things To Think About Key Cost Drivers in the Organization Modern Organizational Reality n Degree of Separation Factor The Why ERP systems cost broken down We do things differently The Results Gap

Key ERP Cost Drivers “The Financial Impact Of Packaged Applications” (July 11, 2006), Forrester

The average $1 billion company maintains 48 disparate financial systems and uses 2.7 ERP systems (Hackett Group) “Individuals hold the key to the knowledge economy and most of it is lost when they leave the enterprise – Gartner” ?%

… StructuredUnstructured Copy of Data in Excel 2007 IW Copy of Data is amended Mgr V-team IW LOBSystem n Degrees Of Separation Decisions ratified with mgmt Mgr Exec Mgmt

Office Business Application Framework LOB Systems Tools Visual Studio Tools for Office …Tools … 2007 Office system clients Office SharePoint Server 2007 Office Business Applications Microsoft Office System Dynamics SAP Exchange Server 2007 Office Communications Server 2007 Siebel LOB DynamicsDynamicsDuetDuet ISV OBAs Custom OBAs SearchWorkflow Business Data Catalog Website and Security Framework Excel Services Open XML File Formats and Extensible Fluent Interface

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What is this VSTO? RAD Visual designers for quick UI Extensibility Simple Data binding for Word Content Controls New VBA to VSTO Interoperability Support for Custom SharePoint Workflow More –Application-level add-ins for most client programs (both 2003 and 2007) –Document-level add-ins for Excel and Word 2007 and InfoPath New ClickOnce deployment and improved security

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Extend the Office Fluent Ribbon Ribbon Designer Ribbon Controls Design Surface

Create Custom Task & Actions Panes VSTO simplifies and speeds up task pane UI design process with visual designers and.NET hookup –Actions Pane: Associated with a specific Word or Excel document More robust, easier to program alternative to Office’s built-in “Smart Document” technology –Custom Task Pane: The same general idea as Actions Pane, only on the application add-in level, not individual doc Custom Task Pane

Word Content Controls New experience for developing structured documents in Word 2007 New UI for developers to access Word Content Controls Programmable through Word Object Model Support for XML Mapping Toolbox Controls

Call VSTO from VBA Developers enable VBA via COM Interop Interop implemented at design time Developers can then call VSTO from VBA with IntelliSense after building the project

Outlook Form Regions

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Deployment & Security ClickOnce support Complete end-to-end customization installation experience Richer version-independent security model Offline access via the ClickOnce Cache

Deployment & Security

SharePoint Workflow Support VSTO supports creation of SharePoint workflow to help manage business process and information flow –Reduces complexity and greatly speeds development of SharePoint workflow

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Are There Other Tools? VSeWSS –Free download for Visual Studio 2005 that allows you to create: Team sites Blank sites Lists … VSeWSS v.next coming soon for Visual Studio 2008

What About Other Things?.NET 3.0 Provides more feature enhancements –WPF designer experience for improved UI –WCF service creation –WF capabilities Also, LINQ supported in VS 2008 Expression Blend as a designer tool –Projects integrate with VS 2008

Summary Office has evolved into a rich platform consisting of servers, applications, tools, and services. You can use the Office platform to build OBAs. OBAs include client-side and SharePoint customizations and integrate with LOB systems. Look out for other tools (e.g. VSeWSS v.next) that will be compatible with VS 2008

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