Office Business Applications

Part 0 of 3: Overview

Office Business Applications, also known as OBAs, are innovative set of applications to connect systems with people by merging the potentials of 2007 Microsoft Office System - such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint 2007, and Microsoft Office 2007. They are devised to present line of business information to information workers inside their common productivity tools, such as Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 plays a vital role in the composite architecture of Office Business Applications. In addition to the client applications provided by Microsoft Office 2007, it endows portal, sites, pages, and Web parts in the presentation layer of the business application. It also provides libraries and list in the productivity layer, including document library, forms library, and key performance indicator list. And it provides services in application layer, such as business data catalog, workflow integration, and enterprise search.

Demonstration Abstract

In this piece, we will attempt to create a Survey System to explore the basic elements in developing and implementing Office Business Applications.  In the first part of this guide, we will create a Microsoft SQL Server database for our system. Then will construct a Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 form for our data entry, a Survey Form, publishing it to form library in our Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal. Moreover, we will do some enhancements in our in our form, like auto- generation/conversion of our form to Microsoft Office Word 2007 template. In the second part, we will create a Microsoft Office Excel 2007 template that would serve as our reporting/analysis tool. Through Microsoft Office Fluent interface and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, we will affect some customizations in our Excel template, together with custom ribbon, and custom action pane. In the last part of this piece, we will try to enhance our office business application by applying a custom workflow, business data catalog, and composition toolkit.

For details visit http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905528.aspx. Thanks.