MSDN Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 89)

Steve Fox Office OBA Solution Patterns In The Real World arge-scale systems such as SAP and PeopleSoft, and other comprehensive line of business (LOB) systems, are critical for the successful management of all types of business data and processes. However, not everyone in an organization has access to these systems, so the business data in them is often available to only a select few. This often results in data being extracted out of the system for processing, creating a disconnect between the business data source and the information workers who consume that data. Office Business Applications (OBAs) address this problem by using Microsoft® Office to bridge the divide between business data in LOB systems and the information worker. Office features allow you to perform tasks such as integrating customer relationship management (CRM) data into Microsoft Outlook® through custom form regions and folders, integrating business intelligence into Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server (MOSS) to provide views into Sales performance data, and even integrating Microsoft Excel® with finance data to provide forecast templates that use data directly from LOB systems, to name a few. To understand an OBA, you can think of it as a very simple model that includes three major parts: the LOB system, the customized Office client that integrates with the LOB system, and the server component (essentially MOSS) that also integrates with the LOB system. Note that when building OBAs you can also leverage other Microsoft server products such as Exchange Server 2007, PerformancePoint™ Server 2007, and so on. From an architectural perspective, you’ll predominantly use a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to integrate with LOB systems, but with an OBA, you can customize the client in a number of ways as the interface to that services layer. More than likely, you’ll use Visual Studio® Tools for Office (VSTO) to do this. For example, Figure 1 illustrates an interface with a custom ribbon and a custom task pane. Both interface with a services layer that populates the Excel 2007 spreadsheet with event information from SAP, and both are built using VSTO 3.0—the latest release of VSTO included in DevelOpment This article uses the following technologies: Visual Studio 2008 This article discusses: OBA basics OBA patterns ✥ Microsoft Office and LOB integration ✥ Real-world applications of OBA patterns ✥ ✥ Steve Fox is a Program Manager with the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) team at Microsoft. He divides his time working externally with VSTO customers, providing VSTO training, delivering VSTO sessions at conferences, and working internally with the development team to help evolve the VSTO product. march2008 89

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - March 2008

MSDN Magazine - March 2008 Contents Toolbox CLR Inside Out Data Points Advanced Basics Office Space Introducing ASP.NET MVC Loosen Up CI Server Performance Office Development Test Run Security Briefs Extreme ASP.NET Foundations .NET Matters {End Bracket}

MSDN Magazine - March 2008

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