September, 2005

I was talking to a customer last week at PDC and we were discussing about the possibilities offered by Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 (MCMS 2002). Powered by Microsoft .NET–connected technology, MCMS 2002 enables companies to quickly and efficiently build, deploy, and maintain mission critical content-rich Web sites.

MCMS 2002 provides a managed object model that allows you to extend the functionality that ships with the product and manage content programmatically. You can create custom navigation controls, placeholder controls, and more. A common need for site managers is to find and replace text of a given set of web pages. Imagine that after a while of creating postings (web pages) inside your MCMS 2002 site, you suddenly realize that you need to replace the text "foo" with the text "bar." Now imagine that you have more than 10,000 postings! MCMS 2002 does not provide built-in functionality to find and replace text because there are multiple combinations of channels, postings, and different kinds of placeholders where you might need to find and replace text. However, you can add this functionality to your site thanks the managed object model that ships with MCMS 2002.

Suppose that given a root channel, you need to find and replace text inside all the HTMLPlaceholders of all postings and the same for each subchannel inside the root channel. The following source code provides a way to implement the functionality that I explained:

1. Declare the following namespaces and add the corresponding references to your project.
   using System.Security.Principal;
   using System.Threading;
   using Microsoft.ContentManagement.Publishing;
   using Microsoft.ContentManagement.Common;
   using Microsoft.ContentManagement.Publishing.Extensions.Placeholders;
2. Create a method that searches for text in all the postings and subchannels of a given channel.
   public string FindAndReplaceText(string channel, string findtext, string replacetext) {
       
       // Create CmsApplicationContext and authenticate 
       CmsApplicationContext context = new CmsApplicationContext();
       WindowsIdentity ident = (WindowsIdentity)Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity;
       context.AuthenticateUsingUserHandle(ident.Token, PublishingMode.Update); 
       
       // Define root channel based on context
       Channel root = null;
       root = (Channel) context.Searches.GetByPath(channel);
   
       // Search for findtext in all the channel's postings
       foreach(Posting ps in root.Postings){
           if (ps.State == "Published"){
               foreach(Placeholder pl in ps.Placeholders){
                   SearchText(pl, ps, findtext, replacetext);
               }
           }                    
       }
       
       // Search for findtext in all the channel's subchannels
       if (root.Channels.Count>0){
           foreach(Channel ch in root.Channels){
               foreach(Posting ps in ch.Postings){
                   if (ps.State == "Published"){
                       foreach(Placeholder pl in ps.Placeholders){
                           SearchText(pl, ps, findtext, replacetext);
                       }
                   }        
               }
           }
       }
   }
3. Create a method that searches for text inside all the HtmlPlaceholders of a given posting
   public void SearchText(Placeholder pl, Posting ps, string findtext, string replacetext) {
       if (pl.GetType().ToString() == "Microsoft.ContentManagement.Publishing.Extensions.Placeholders.HtmlPlaceholder"){
           HtmlPlaceholder ph;
           ph = (HtmlPlaceholder)pl;
           if (ph != null) {
               int ptr = ph.Text.IndexOf(findtext);
               if (ptr != -1){
                   string content = ph.Datasource.RawContent;
                   ph.Datasource.RawContent = content.Replace(findtext,replacetext);
                   ph.Posting.Approve();
                   context.CommitAll();
               }
           }
       }
   }

So as you can see, you can play around with the MCMS 2002 managed object model and create cool enhancements for your Web sites.

I am back at Redmond and before I continue with my after-trip duties, I want to share with you the Office & SharePoint PDC slides:

OFF201 ''Office 12'': Introduction to the Programmable Customization Model for the "Office 12" User Experience (Part 1)      OFF201_Harris.ppt

OFF302 ''Office 12'': Developing with the Programmable Customization Model for the "Office 12" User Experience (Part 2)      OFF302_Dhanjal.ppt

OFF303 Groove: Building Enterprise Workgroup Applications      OFF303_Pyle.ppt

OFF304 Assembling, Repurposing and Manipulating Document Content Using the New Office File Format      OFF304_Jones.ppt

OFF306 "InfoPath 12": Creating Browser-Based Forms for Enabling Data and Application Integration      OFF306_Bath.ppt

OFF307 "Access 12": Developing Collaboration Solutions with "Access 12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3"      OFF307_Covington.ppt

OFF308 Windows SharePoint Services 'v3': Creating and Defining Custom Templates, Sites, Features, and Solutions      OFF308_Ammerlaan.ppt

OFF310 Windows SharePoint Services: Developing Collaboration and Tracking Applications      OFF310_Morton.ppt

OFF311 ''Project Server 12'': Developing Project Management Solutions      OFF311_Smail.ppt

OFF312 "Outlook 12": Developing Solutions Using the Consolidated Outlook Object Model      OFF312_Byrne.ppt

OFF313 Web Content Management Application Development and Engine Extensibility      OFF313_Stocker.ppt

OFF314 Developing Enterprise Document Solutions Using Office Client and Server Technologies      OFF314_Lefferts.ppt

OFF316 Word “12”: Integrating Business Data into Documents using XML-based Data/View Separation and Programmability      OFF316_Davis.ppt

OFF318 Developing Document Archiving, Records Management, and Policy Enforcement Extensions to the Microsoft Office System      OFF318_Lefferts.ppt

OFF319 ''InfoPath 12'': Developing Forms for the Smart Client and the Browser      OFF319_Friend.ppt

OFF320 Developing with Microsoft Office System Search Technology      OFF320_Sherman.ppt

OFF321 Surfacing Your Application's Line-of-Business Data and Actions within Enterprise Portals      OFF321_Burke.ppt

OFF322 Building a Solution Using a Spreadsheet in Server-Based Scenarios      OFF322 _Khen.ppt

OFF323 Building Business Intelligence Solutions Using "Excel 12" and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services      OFF323_Netz_Folting.ppt

OFF324 “Visio 12”: Building Data Visualization Solutions      OFF324_Morein.ppt

OFF325 Microsoft CRM: Extending and Customizing Microsoft CRM Solutions      OFF325_Ghanaie-Sichanie.ppt

OFF405 Windows SharePoint Services: Using ASP.NET 2.0 Technology to Extend Pages, Sites, and Server Farms      OFF405R_Ammerlaan.ppt      OFF405_Ammerlaan.ppt

OFF409 Windows SharePoint Services: Advancements in Document, Content, and Data Storage      OFF409_Friesenhahn.ppt

OFF415 Windows SharePoint Services: Developing Custom Workflows      OFF415_Hatoun.ppt

OFF417 Visual Studio Tools for Office 'v3': Creating Office Application Customizations      OFF417_Whitechapel.ppt For more PDC slides, go to http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/downloads.aspx.

Have a peek and enjoy!

So here we are at PDC 2005!

Bill Gates and Chris Caposella (the VP for Information Worker Division at Microsoft), presented a preview of Windows Vista and Office "12."  The demo included a preview of the new ribbon user interface for Office "12" client applications and some of the productivity enhancements added to Excel "12", Word "12, and Windows SharePoint services "v3." Today, Jensen Harris and Andy Himberger will present a two-part session that provides guidance to extend and customize the Office "12" user interface, so keep connected to know more about the outcome of these sessions.

If you are here at PDC, come to the Office & SharePoint Track Lounge, a place where you can come to ask questions to the experts and meet the speakers for Office & SharePoint sessions. The following table displays the schedule for the Office & SharePoint Track Lounge:

I was dying to blog since I woke up this morning and finally I got a chance to sit down and share some Office "12" news with the community.

The day started with Steven Sinfosky's Keynote, where he announced some of the coolest enhancements for Office "12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3." Steven started his presentation by talking about how the Office System has evolved to a results-oriented developer platform that allows extensibility thanks to the integration to XML and Web Services, Visual Studio .NET and managed code, a results oriented user interface, and the XML File Formats. Steven concluded his keynote with some great demos for InfoPath, Access, SharePoint, Excel, and Outllook. I really enjoyed to experience the joy and surprise shown by the audience as Steven presented some of the new features added to Office "12."

We also had eight sessions today that are related to Office "12' or Windows SharePoint Services "v3". In a nutshell, I can share with you some of the new enhancements that were announced today and yesterday at PDC and that are related to Office "12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3":

Introducing and extending the Ribbon User Interface

Office "12" has a new look for client applications that replaces menus and toolbars with a Ribbon UI that organizes buttons, galleries, menus, and toolbars into tabs organized by categories. If you created special toolbars and CommandBars, the UI displays a special tab for your custom functionality. You can also extend the Ribbon UI by creating COM or managed Add-Ins or by using a text-based XML markup definition to create and customize the UI. The following picture shows a peek of the Ribbon UI:

Open XML File Formats

Office "12" provides a new XML based file format that allows interoperability and collaboration between other Microsoft Office System and third-party applications. The new XML file format replaces the previous Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Project file extensions to an open XML file format that is integrated with ZIP compressions to reduce the file size up to 75 percent. Office "12" client applications still allow you to save documents in the previous file format for backward compatibility. The files generated by Office "12" client applications are not only raw documents, now, you can use these files as a repository for data used by other applications.

InfoPath Forms services

InfoPath Forms services provide a Web browser form-filling experience for users that need to complete InfoPath forms from Web-based applications. This Web experience is built as a feature on top of the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services "v3" platform. This feature is really cool because now you can add InfoPath forms to your ASP.NET applications.

Excel services

Some Web-based applications require to host Excel and interact with spreadsheets to explore and pivot on data, calculate and set values, or analyze PivotTable reports and charts using the browser. To obtain this functionality, Microsoft introduces Excel services. Excel spreadsheet services provide you with the ability to view and interact with spreadsheets in a browser. You can calculate, create snapshots, and extract values from the workbooks. You can also programmatically generate, manage, and distribute customized Excel spreadsheets by using Excel spreadsheet services. When I knew about this I almost cried! This one was a great need that lots of customers demanded and I am happy that we have something like this now and into the future.

Access, InfoPath, Windows SharePoint Services, and Outlook integration and collaboration

Believe it or not, you can create business workflows where you can define for example and InfoPath form that is filled inside Outlook, when sent back, a WorkFlow is updated inside Windows SharePoint Services, and the data stored inside Access. Today, writing and application that accomplishes this set of tasks is a bit complex and requires many lines of code. With Office "12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3" ease of use, collaboration, and productivity have a real meaning.

I close the day with a picture of the great Office "12" stairs at PDC: "Step Up to the Future" - Microsoft Office "12"

PDC starts next week and many enhancements for Office "12" and SharePoint "v3" will be announced, so expect to learn more about what's new for Office developers next week. The Office Developer Center will have some great surprises for you, so stop by next week.

I am very happy because I will be at L.A. next week to attend PDC 2005. I am responsible for the Office & SharePoint Track Lounge, a place where you can stop by and hang out to meet the speakers, staff, and experts. If you are not attending PDC, visit my blog, I will keep you posted on the latest news and surprises.

If you are attending PDC 2005, don't loose the opportuniy to learn more about the possibilities that Office offers as a development platform:

DAT315  Building Portals and Dashboards for Business Intelligence and Reporting Applications

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 10:00 AM- 11:15 AM Room: 408 AB

Speaker(s): Chris McKulka, Brian Welcker

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

Looking to build Business Intelligence and reporting portals and dashboards? Come learn how to build your solutions on the new SharePoint Portal "v3" and SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services platforms to provide live visual dashboards and portal sites optimized for all reporting needs. Topics include setting up and customizing a Report Center in a SharePoint Portal building on the new portal features, using Excel and Report Builder to publish spreadsheets and reports to the portal, and more.

 

OFF201  ''Office 12'': Introduction to the Programmable Customization Model for the "Office 12" User Experience (Part 1)

Day/Time: Tuesday, September 13 1:00 PM- 2:15 PM Room: 515 AB

Speaker(s): Jensen Harris

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 200

Track(s): Office & SharePoint, Presentation

"Office 12" is introducing a new, declarative model for customizing the Office user interface using XML. Learn about what is possible and how your Office solutions can benefit from the new technologies.

 

OFF302  ''Office 12'': Developing with the Programmable Customization Model for the "Office 12" User Experience (Part 2)

Day/Time: Tuesday, September 13 2:45 PM- 4:00 PM Room: 402 AB

Speaker(s): Andy Himberger

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint, Presentation

"Office 12" is introducing a new, declarative model for customizing the Office user interface using XML. This session dives into the details of the markup and the resulting behavior, describes how the markup interacts with DLL-based code, and provides guidance for migrating existing solutions and developing new ones.

 

OFF303  Groove: Building Enterprise Workgroup Applications

Day/Time: Tuesday, September 13 2:45 PM- 4:00 PM Room: 406 AB

Speaker(s): Hugh Pyle

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

This session covers the architecture and design of Groove applications connected to enterprise systems. We show how to use the Groove Forms tool to build collaborative applications with the Groove client, and take apart a custom C# application that uses the Groove Web Services to connect Groove workspaces and Groove Forms data into an enterprise process.

 

OFF304  Assembling, Repurposing and Manipulating Document Content Using the New Office File Format

Day/Time: Tuesday, September 13 4:15 PM- 5:30 PM Room: 406 AB

Speaker(s): Brian Jones

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

The new Microsoft Office Open XML Formats are the default XML file formats for "Office 12". The power and accessibility of these XML file formats are designed for programmability and open up numerous scenarios for manipulating files, creating files from scratch, repurposing content and merging files with business data. This session explains the architecture of the new Open XML Formats, details of the application schemas and walks through how to create a couple of detailed solutions using the WinFX API to control file content.

 

OFF306  "InfoPath 12": Creating Browser-Based Forms for Enabling Data and Application Integration

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 11:00 AM- 12:15 PM Room: 502 AB

Speaker(s): Kamaljit Bath

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

This session dives deeply into the new server capability for forms, including server architecture, the security model, performance and authentication. Learn about Visual Studio development with InfoPath for .NET form rendering, business logic checks (through FxCop on the server), data connectivity on the server, and hosting the server form control in an interactive custom aspx page.

 

OFF307   "Access 12": Developing Collaboration Solutions with "Access 12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3"

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 1:45 PM- 3:00 PM Room: 411

Speaker(s): Clint Covington

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Learn how to combine the new "Access 12" capabilities with the collaboration environment provided by SharePoint sites to build smart client solutions for SharePoint list and library data. "Access 12" has significantly enhanced design tools, full schema interoperability with Windows SharePoint Services, and a new sandboxed development model. We show how to put these tools to work building rich applications in Access that store their data in SharePoint sites, collect data through InfoPath and Outlook, and take advantage of new services from "Office 12" SharePoint Servers. Best practices are discussed around taking SharePoint list data offline, implementing workflow capabilities, and creating reusable template applications, tables and fields for end users.

 

OFF308  Windows SharePoint Services 'v3': Creating and Defining Custom Templates, Sites, Features, and Solutions

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 1:45 PM- 3:00 PM Room: 501 ABC

Speaker(s): Mike Ammerlaan

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

This session covers facilities and techniques for grafting new features into a variety of standard and custom SharePoint sites. It also highlights enhancements into the site definition and provisioning model for giving users a self-service method to create ready-to-use sites that fit specific business activities.

 

OFF310  Windows SharePoint Services: Developing Collaboration and Tracking Applications

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 5:00 PM- 6:15 PM Room: 402 AB

Speaker(s): Mike Morton

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Communications, Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

The next version of SharePoint sites will include support for new types of data, new options for working with them, and improved interoperability with other Windows Server technologies. This session covers how to take advantage of these facilites within your own code to make use of SharePoint sites for more types of collaboration scenarios.

 

OFF311  ''Project Server 12'': Developing Project Management Solutions

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 5:00 PM- 6:15 PM Room: 411

Speaker(s): Phil Smail

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

"Project Server 12" provides a comprehensive platform for creating project collaboration, program management, and IT governance solutions. In this session, learn how to use the new eventing and programmability for advanced scheduling, workflow operations and more in Project 12.

 

OFF312  "Outlook 12": Developing Solutions Using the Consolidated Outlook Object Model

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 10:00 AM- 11:15 AM Room: 406 AB

Speaker(s): Randy Byrne

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

This session highlights the more important fundamental changes that will make "Outlook 12" a better development platform-making it easier to build solutions that are immediately more robust, usable and manageable. Learn about significant changes in programming the user interaction, the core object model and performance.

 

OFF313  Web Content Management Application Development and Engine Extensibility

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 10:00 AM- 11:15 AM Room: 404 AB

Speaker(s): Ryan Stocker

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint, Tools & Languages

This session covers enhanced functionality for designing, deploying, and maintaining Web portals and other applications that depend on large amounts of HTML content.

 

OFF314  Developing Enterprise Document Solutions Using Office Client and Server Technologies

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 10:00 AM- 11:15 AM Room: 409 AB

Speaker(s): Rob Lefferts

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Communications, Office & SharePoint

A solution that manages the life of a document can be complex when it involves workflow, content types, policy management, publishing, solution-specific views, and multiple methods of interaction. This session walks you through one complex scenario that integrates the new Enterprise Content Management technologies in the Microsoft "Office 12" client and server products, featuring code at each stage of the document life cycle.

 

OFF316  Word “12”: Integrating Business Data into Documents using XML-based Data/View Separation and Programmability

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 11:30 AM- 12:45 PM Room: 406 AB

Speaker(s): Tristan Davis

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Word 2003 introduced the concept of structured documents with its support for custom XML. This session will show how Word "12" takes XML document programmability to a new level, offering improved robustness, more intuitive user interaction, and true data/view separation using the new XML file format. A basic overview of the improved out of the box capabilities (incl. integration with Windows SharePoint Services) will be introduced, and then the power behind those will be shown through a more complex scenario leveraging these features.

 

OFF318  Developing Document Archiving, Records Management, and Policy Enforcement Extensions to the Microsoft Office System

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 2:15 PM- 3:30 PM Room: 404 AB

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Abstract pending

 

OFF319  ''InfoPath 12'': Developing Forms for the Smart Client and the Browser

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 3:45 PM- 5:00 PM Room: 502 AB

Speaker(s): Ned Friend

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Rapid development of both client and browser forms is central theme of the next version of InfoPath. This session covers what's changed in forms development for "Office 12." Drill into deeper integration with Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System and the new all-managed object model. Learn how to reuse your work through form template parts and through migrating your existing forms investments with the importer/exporter framework. Understand how to integrate InfoPath forms into your own application by hosting InfoPath as an ActiveX or WinForm control, and how to extend InfoPath itself through COM add-ins.

 

OFF320  Developing with Microsoft Office System Search Technology

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 3:45 PM- 5:00 PM Room: 404 AB

Speaker(s): Joe Sherman

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Microsoft is making a significant investment in enterprise search with the next version of SharePoint technologies. This session provides a short overview of new product capabilities-including enhancements to relevance, end user experience, and manageability-and then focuses on opportunities for using search in your custom enterprise applications.

 

OFF321  Surfacing Your Application's Line-of-Business Data and Actions within Enterprise Portals

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 5:15 PM- 6:30 PM Room: 502 AB

Speaker(s): Jonah Burke

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Data comes from everywhere. Learn about the new technologies being delivered with the next version of the Microsoft Office System for connecting to enterprise data within portal and workspace applications. We cover recommended practices and interfaces for streamlining the use of business data in Office servers.

 

OFF322  Building a Solution Using a Spreadsheet in Server-Based Scenarios

Day/Time: Friday, September 16 8:30 AM- 9:45 AM Room: 404 AB

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

Abstract pending

 

OFF323  Building Business Intelligence Solutions Using "Excel 12" and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

Day/Time: Friday, September 16 10:30 AM- 11:45 AM Room: 404 AB

Speaker(s): Allan Folting, Amir Netz

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

Business Intelligence (BI) is all about business users making better and faster decisions based on the correct data. Getting accurate data into users' hands is crucial to any successful BI application. With that goal in mind, learn how to use SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and "Excel 12" to build an enterprise-level data analysis solution. In this session, we show you how to develop server-side business rules and unified views of business data for one version of the truth, while at the same time providing end users with simple, self-service flexibility in Excel to make accurate decisions quickly. We cover advancements in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, "Excel 12", and how the two products integrate to provide a total solution. Analysis Services topics focus on using Visual Studio to design and organize metadata, develop server-side formatting and exception highlighting, create server-driven actions, develop Key Performance Indicators, and optimize all of the above for analysis in "Excel 12". "Excel 12" topics include the next generation data visualization, analysis, connection and publishing technologies.

 

OFF324  “Visio 12”: Building Data Visualization Solutions

Day/Time: Tuesday, September 13 1:00 PM- 2:15 PM Room: 409 AB

Speaker(s): Bill Morein

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

Your application deals with huge amounts of data-making sense of that information and communicating it broadly is vital to making your users successful. Learn how to incorporate dynamic views of data into your smart client application using the new data visualization capabilities in "Visio 12". Stepping through the creation of an example application, topics covered include connecting to data sources (e.g. Excel, Access, SQL Server, SharePoint lists, and XML), programmatically mapping that data to shapes, and surfacing the data on the diagram using the Data Graphics API.

 

OFF325  Microsoft CRM: Extending and Customizing Microsoft CRM Solutions

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 3:15 PM- 4:30 PM Room: 402 AB

Speaker(s): Arash Ghanaie-Sichanie, Alex Simon

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 300

Track(s): Office & SharePoint

This session will provide a deep overview of the Microsoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) V3.0 architecture and its rich extensibility model. We'll show how to use Microsoft CRM managed web services, XML schemas, extensive customization tools, NET managed assembly extensions and client side scripting to build powerful sales automation and price proposal management applications in a Service Oriented world. The session also covers how to use Microsoft CRM Workflow NET managed extensions to integrate your custom business logic and process models with CRM. We will use a real price proposal management business scenario to walk you through the CRM extensibility features and show numerous cool demos and code walkthroughs as part of the session. You will also learn how to integrate Microsoft CRM with other applications such as Microsoft Office System (Word, Excel and SharePoint) using the CRM web services, NET Framework and Visual Studio Tools for Office as part of the price proposal management solution design.

 

OFF405  Windows SharePoint Services: Using ASP.NET 2.0 Technology to Extend Pages, Sites, and Server Farms

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 11:00 AM- 12:15 PM Room: 409 AB

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 2:15 PM- 3:30 PM Room: 518

Speaker(s): Mike Ammerlaan

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 400

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

This session covers Windows SharePoint Services' behavior as an ASP.NET Web application, specifically in the areas of Web Parts, master pages, pluggable providers, and much more.

 

OFF409  Windows SharePoint Services: Advancements in Document, Content, and Data Storage

Day/Time: Wednesday, September 14 3:15 PM- 4:30 PM Room: 409 AB

Speaker(s): Dustin Friesenhahn

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 400

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

The technology that allows Office clients and servers to use SharePoint sites as repositories for documents, discussion threads, and many other kinds of content has evolved. This session covers how such facilities work and how you can use them for your own applications.

 

OFF415  Windows SharePoint Services: Developing Custom Workflows

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 11:30 AM- 12:45 PM Room: 408 AB

Speaker(s): George Hatoun, Pravin Indurkar

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 400

Track(s): Data & Systems, Office & SharePoint

This session covers how to implement workflow within SharePoint sites, as well as handling SharePoint site-specific issues that would be necessary for any workflow

 

OFF417  Visual Studio Tools for Office 'v3': Creating Office Application Customizations

Day/Time: Thursday, September 15 2:15 PM- 3:30 PM Room: 409 AB

Speaker(s): Andrew Whitechapel

Session Type(s): Breakout

Session Level(s): 400

Track(s): Office & SharePoint, Tools & Languages

See how the next version of the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) will work with "Office 12" to provide application-level functionality for Visual Studio developers. Learn how the current popular capabilities for VSTO 2005 customizations of Word and Excel documents and add-ins for Outlook are being extended and broadened for "Office 12." This session walks through the development experience and capabilities, and dives into the implementation details that have made these advances possible.

Do I have stuff to talk about today! The track lounge became quite popular today after more cool things about Office "12" and SharePoint "v3" were presented through the sessions.  The Office team is quite enthusiastic and I can honestly say that they have a great passion for customers and worked extra shifts to answer more questions. Here are some pictures of the Office & SharePoint Track Lounge while the day started:

I could write for hours about the sessions and discussions related to Office "12" and SharePoint here at PDC. However, I will keep it simple and write about some of the key enhancements that were presented in some sessions and discussions throughout the day:

1. Rob Lefferts delivered a great session about developing enterprise document solutions using Office client and server technologies. He got into the details of how Windows SharePoint Services "v3" can be used to create workflows to control document management, a common scenario and need for different organizations. I talked to a person at the lounge who can't wait to get his hands into the beta because he needs to replicate this scenario. No matter what kind of industry you work for: government, legal, finance, industry, and so on; all organizations manage documents and NEED organized information systems that help to classify, archive, manage, control, search, and even approve/disapprove content through business oriented workflows.
2. Andrew Whitechapel delivered another great session about Visual Studio Tools for Office "v3". He presented a great solution to avoid AddIn blacklisting: the AddInLoader, a component (shim) that makes Office aware of managed code AddIns and improves the security model using Code Access Security (CAS), provides runtime isolation (each AddIn loads inside its own AppDomain), and presents a dialog that provides friendly and clear information if an AddIn fails to load. All these enhancements simplify the life of developers that create AddIns for Office and that struggle to work with AddIns when and AddIn fails. Andrew made an awesome demo on how to generate (with few lines of code) custom task panes inside Office client applications. Developers were more that pleased to see how a common business scenario will be solved so easily thanks to the practical ideas of the VSTO team.
3. Ned Friend delivered a great InfoPath session where he talked about developing InfoPath "12" Forms for the smart client and the browser. I could not attend to this one because I was doing Track Lounge duty, but I saw the InfoPath team at the lounge after the presentation and they all had huge smiles (a great sign) and a lot of attendees were desperate looking for the InfoPath experts. There are MANY business scenarios where you need to run InfoPath forms from a web-based application, so having this option solves a great need. 

Before I became a part of the Office User Assistance Team, I used to be an MCS Development Consultant, and I know that all these scenarios/challenges are common business needs for different organizations. I am glad to see that the Office and SharePoint team made a great effort to understand the current needs and pains that appear across organizations and is delivering a well-thought set of solutions through Office "12" and Windows SharePoint Services "v3" that help to solve common business problems easily and makes a simple kind of life for developers too! 

Microsoft continues to invest deeply in XML in Office. The new release of Microsoft Office "12" Word®, Microsoft Office "12" Excel®, and Microsoft Office "12" PowerPoint® includes a set of XML schemas that comply with the W3C specifications. The XML schemas allow you to understand an XML based definition of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations as part of the new Open XML formats for Office "12."

If you want to understand more of the internals of Microsoft Office "12" Word®, Microsoft Office "12" Excel®, and Microsoft Office "12" PowerPoint®, download the Office "12" XML Schema Reference - PDC 2005 Preview and take a deep dive into the XML schemas.

Keep in mind that this is draft documentation and that some details of the schemas might change for the Beta release.

Have a peek and enjoy!