SharePoint is the fastest-growing product in Microsoft’s history and also has a tremendous following in the developer community, which means more innovative solutions are being created every day. This chapter will help define and position the role that SharePoint plays in developing OBA solutions. In this chapter, you will learn about the different components and services of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and how they can be leveraged, customized, and extended by developers to build Office Business Application (OBA) solutions. An OBA would not be an OBA without SharePoint.
There is so much information when it comes to SharePoint Products and Technologies. It is sometimes a daunting task to figure out where to start because of all the possibilities that are enabled with the underlying platform and technologies. So before we begin diving into some of the details about SharePoint development it is important to first define what the role of SharePoint is within an OBA. As discussed in Chapter 1, OBAs provide a comprehensive solution for information workers that integrates the client, the server, and line-of-business (LOB) systems to provide business information in the context of their current activity.
Two great examples of this can be seen in Figure 6-1, Figure 6-2, and Figure 6-3. The first example shows how an information worker using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 can work directly in Outlook to view the sales forecasts from individual sales persons using a custom Outlook form region (discussed in Chapter 2) that accesses business data directly from his LOB system. The most important point to make about this first example is the fact that the information worker never left Outlook to accomplish his work. This is one of the most powerful aspects of using Microsoft Office and the SharePoint platform to build OBA solutions.
Figure 6-2 showcases integration between Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 through the use of the Business Data Catalog (BDC) to create quotes and invoices. As in the earlier example, the individual working on this document is able to stay within the context of her business activity, creating a quote, without having to switch back and forth between different applications. This is all accomplished through the use of smart tags that expose the information worker to custom actions to quickly query the BDC to retrieve product information directly from an LOB system and incorporate those details in the document.
Figure 6-3 represents an alternative way of displaying data from the previous example. Instead of the information worker using a smart tag action from a recognized keyword in the document, a custom task pane (discussed in Chapter 2) is used as an alternative way to display the very same data from the LOB using the BDC.
I think these examples should provide you with enough background on how to think about providing OBA solutions that focus on delivering data to information workers in the applications that they use every day. In the second example cited, MOSS 2007 plays a central role in being able to deliver a contextual business solution. This example also provides an end-to-end view of connecting the desktop, server, and LOB system.
