Erika Ehrli

Office Developer Community Submitted Content

I believe that people who have an opportunity to work with the field own an incomparable wealth of knowledge. MVPs, partners, consultants, and developers learn through experience all the technical details needed to design, develop, and deploy line-of-business solutions. Some of this people are really passionate about sharing their knowledge with the community by becoming trainers or by writing blogs, technical articles, or recording demos.

Since we launched Office 2007, some well-known MVPs, Microsoft Partners, Microsoft Consultants (MCS), and recognized third-parties have authored lots of technical articles, videos, white papers, code samples, and books to share their knowledge with the community. Good news is many of this content items are published on MSDN.

Today we launched a new community page that compiles a list of all Office 2007 community submitted content. This page provides an RSS feed that tags content by company. This page also provides links to Office 2007 and SharePoint projects submitted to CodePlex and to MSDN Code Gallery. Finally, we've been watching you all by monitoring metrics for Office 2007 content and this page also provides a list of top authors, and top videos.

If you are an MVP or an active member of the Office developer community, you can submit articles for the MSDN Office Developer Center. Here's how:

• Check out the MSDN process for content submission: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aboutmsdn/aa537129.aspx
• You can also contact me through my blog, or contact the Office Developer Documentation Managers through their blogs:
• Andrew May: Windows SharePoint Services Documentation
• David Hale: Office Client Documentation
• Randall Isenhour: Office SharePoint Server and Project Server Documentation

OBA Sample Application Kits Release to Web!

If you’re looking for guidance on how to integrate SAP and/or PeopleSoft into your Office applications, then the OBA Sample Application Kits are a great place to start. OBA, or Office Business Application, is a composite application that integrates line-of-business systems with the Office client (e.g. Excel or Outlook) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. These kits provide some great documentation and source code to help you get up and running quickly. The kits include:

1.       Source code for an end-to-end OBA;

2.       Installation guide;

3.       Solution walkthrough; and

4.       Technical overview document.

The kits are a free download and can be found by going to the OBA Sample Application Kits landing page on MSDN:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cc442491.aspx

You can also find the code samples here:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/obasapsak

Check out the kits and more by visiting the OBA Sample Application Kits site on MSDN today. Also, check out Steve Fox's blog for more information.

Open XML Format SDK - Class Diagram Explorer in Silverlight 2.0 Beta

Last week I had the great opportunity to do my first experiments with Silverlight 2.0. I was truly fascinated to discover the power that this technology offers.

My favorite feature so far is the Deep Zoom functionality. Deep Zoom allows you to zoom in an out an image or collection of images using your browser. It follows the same navigation principle used by http://maps.live.com/, where you use your mouse to zoom in and out a map. Not sure if you have seen the very cool Hard Rock Memorabilia site announced at MIX this year. This is the coolest Deep Zoom demo of all I've seen so far.

Open XML Format SDK - Class Diagram Explorer with Deep Zoom

Many times I've shared with you that I am a visual person and that I really like looking at maps, roadmaps, posters, or diagrams to learn something new. For example, while working with an API, I always find useful to look at class diagrams. I know I can always rely on Intellisense to discover what to do with an API, but to me, class diagrams are a useful tool since they also provide the big picture of how classes relate to each other. Just by looking at class diagrams you can understand the inheritance between classes and you can also see all the members and types of each class.

When we document an API, it's always challenging to provide a full-blown class diagram as part of an SDK or online documentation on MSDN. Some APIs are huge and there's no way we can publish a complete class diagram image in a MSDN online topics. Sometimes we just create partial class diagrams with the most relevant objects because of the space limitations we have.

Las week, while releasing the Open XML Format SDK -April CTP, I thought it would be cool to create a Silverlight 2.0 Beta Deep Zoom app that would allow us all to explore the Open XML API class diagram. For that reason, I created a Deep Zoom app and I am publishing it today so you can play with it and use it as learning tool.

I am posting my Silverlight app here in my blog so you can get the idea of how it works. Use your mouse to click and zoom in and out.

If you want a full screen view of this app, you can access it from this url:

http://www.dotnettreats.com/officeblog/OpenXMLFormatSDKDeepZoom/deepzoomoutput.html

I used Visual Studio 2008 and the Deep Zoom Composer app to create the Open XML API Class Diagram Explorer. My sample app is based on the Deep Zoom Sample with MouseWheel / Pan / Click-Zoom app published by the Expression team.

Silverlight 2.0 Beta and Deep Zoom Resources

If you want to learn more about Deep Zoom and Silverlight, check out the following:

Web sites and blogs

• http://silverlight.net
• http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
• http://dev.live.com/blogs/sls/rss.aspx

I also recommend Arturo Toledo's blog, ScottGu's blog, and the Expression team blog.

Silverlight samples for Office developers

Office developers should look into this. For example, integrating Silverlight apps into SharePoint sites seems to me like a very cool idea.

Announcing the Open XML Format SDK April CTP

We are glad to announce that the Open XML Format SDK April CTP is available!

You can download the new SDK from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD0B72FB-4A1D-4C52-BDB5-7DD7E816D046&displaylang=en

You can also find and online version of the SDK on the MSDN Library:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb448854.aspx

Also, you can find permanent links to both the download and online version at the XML in Office Developer Portal and at the Office Open XML Formats Resource Center.

What is the Open XML Format SDK?

For those of you who are not familiar with this SDK, here's a brief intro.

The Open XML Format SDK Technology Preview simplifies the task of manipulating Open XML packages. The Open XML Application Programming Interface (API) encapsulates many common tasks that developers perform on Open XML packages, so you can perform complex operations with just a few lines of code. Using this API, you can programmatically generate and manipulate Word 2007 documents, Excel 2007 spreadsheets, and PowerPoint 2007 presentations. The programming model uses managed code, so it's safe for server-side scenarios.

The Open XML Format SDK also provides how-to articles and reference documentation that can help you get started with Open XML programming.

What's New in the Open XML Format SDK April CTP?

For those of you that have been working with the June 2007 CTP, here's a brief list of what's new with the April CTP:

Product names and editorial changes

1. The name of the SDK is "Open XML Format SDK" instead of "Microsoft SDK for Open XML Formats."

2. We changed all references of "Open XML object model" to "Open XML Application Programming Interface (API)."

API Changes

1. Move AddNewPart<T>() from class OpenXmlPart to OpenXmlPartContainer class
2. Add overload AddNewPart<T>() that receives a relationship Id parameter as input
3. Support LINQ annotations on parts
4. Move three document enumerations from namespace Microsoft.Office.DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging to Microsoft.Office.DocumentFormat.OpenXml
5. Naming changes for some objects

This release also includes support for cool C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 features, such as LINQ Annotations.

If you want to see more detailed information, see What's New in the Open XML Format SDK April Technology Preview.

Future of the SDK

The Open XML API will release in two versions. Open XML API Version 1.0 is the updated version of the CTP in June 2007 and will only contain the Open XML Packaging API. Open XML API Version 2.0 will contain all of the Open XML API components, including the Open XML Packaging API with further updates. It will enforce validity of the content either in the original Open XML documents or being generated through this API. The purpose of this plan is to give out the long awaited Go-Live license of the existing Open XML Packaging API to external developers.

Here's a development timeline image that shows the release plan for the Open XML API Version 1.0 and Open XML Version 2.0:

We need your feedback

The April 2008 CTP release has improvements based on customer feedback provided by the field and MVPs.

For the May 2008 release of the Open XML API Version 1.0, we also plan to incorporate customer feedback to improve the SDK. If you have comments about the API or documentation, please use the following two resources:

1. MSDN Forum: Open XML Format SDK: Use the forum to ask questions and provide suggestions. The product team is monitoring and moderating this forum.
2. MSDN Library: Open XML Format SDK (Online version) Wiki: The online version of the SDK is Wiki enabled. This allows you to add comments and report bugs you find on documentation. To leave comments, use the "Add Community Content" link located at the bottom of each topic.

Additional Resources

I recommend you monitor the following blogs for more news about the Open XML Format SDK:

• Doug Mahugh: http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh
• Eric White: http://blogs.msdn.com/ericwhite/
• Brian Jones: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/
• Wouter van Vugt: http://blogs.code-counsel.net/Wouter/

More code samples: OpenXmlDeveloper.org site

You can also watch Zeyad's and Eric's interview to learn more about the future of the Open XML Format SDK.

Have fun with the April CTP!

Open XML Hypocrisy

Like many of you, I have been reading many blog posts related to this week's announcement that Office Open XML was approved as an ISO standard. Today I came across an interesting blog post from Jan van den Beld, who was Secretary General of Ecma International in Geneva and is currently a consultant in IT Standardization issues, working for organizations such as ECMA International and more.

I do have a lot of respect for organizations such as ECMA International and I want to share with you a link to Jan's great blog post:

http://janvandenbeld.blogspot.com/2008/04/hypocrisy.html

I think people from ECMA International deserve all our respect.

Happy News for Open XML Developers

Many of you may have already heard that Office Open XML was approved as an ISO standard! This is great news for all of us who have been developing solutions using Open XML. You can find all the details in Brian's blog. Also, Doug Mahugh provides great pointers to other bloggers that talk about this.

Getting Started with Open XML Development

For those of you who are interested in creating solutions using Open XML, you should know that we have plenty of articles, videos, and code samples available on MSDN that can help you get started. If I knew nothing about Open XML today, here's the top ten list of resources I would start with:

1. Article: Introducing the Office (2007) Open XML File Formats
2. Book: Open XML Markup Explained
3. Training: Open XML Developer Workshop
4. Article: Walkthrough: Word 2007 XML Format
5. Poster: Open XML Developer Map
6. Tool: Package Explorer
7. SDK: Open XML Format SDK
8. Article: Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 3)
9. Article: Manipulating Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 2)
10. Article: Building Server-Side Document Generation Solutions Using the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 2)

You can find additional resources here:

• MSDN Resource Center: Office Open XML Formats Resource Center
• OpenXmlDeveloper.org
• Ecma Office Open XML specification download links:
  . Part 1: Fundamentals
  . Part 2: Open Packaging Convention
  . Part 3: Primer
  . Part 4: Markup Language Reference
  . Part 5: Markup Compatibility and Extensibility
  

Also, Joanna Bichsel and Doug Mahugh have compiled great lists of tips, resources, and pointers to Open XML developer documentation. You should check out their blogs!

Coming Soon - Open XML Format SDK: April CTP

Just as we speak, the Office Developer Documentation group (aka MSDN Office group) is busy building a new CTP for the Open XML Format SDK. While I was at the Office Developer Conference this year, many people asked about the future of this SDK and wanted to know if we were to release a Go Live license soon. The answer is yes! Based on customer feedback, the product team improved the June CTP version of the Open XML API. This release also includes support for cool C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 features, such as LINQ Annotations. Watch Zeyad's and Eric's interview for more details.

So this month, not only we got the happy news that the Office Open XML was approved as an ISO standard, developers will also get a new release of the Open XML Format SDK. As soon as we publish the new SDK, I'll be blogging about what's new with the SDK and I'll be sharing more code samples so you can play with this new release.

Last but not least, for those of you who are eager to get started with Open XML, here's a cool video where Brian Jones shows how to build Word 2007 document using the Office Open XML Formats.

Happy times!

Office 2007 + Silverlight

Latest technologies offered to Web developers, such as ASP.NET AJAX and Microsoft Silverlight, offer UI improvements and amazing interactive experiences for Web-based applications.

Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web, visit microsoft.com/silverlight.

Fortunately, you can integrate Silverlight to different Office products and technologies.

Silverlight + SharePoint

Not sure if you have seen this, but you can integrate Silverlight to SharePoint sites. Silverlight user interface elements can help you integrate rich interactive functionality in SharePoint sites. You can create Web parts, document libraries, picture libraries, navigation, and custom field types that provide Silverlight support on SharePoint sites.

The Microsoft Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint provides source code and guidance for developers describing how to use Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies together in business applications and Internet Web sites. This capability enables a fresh look at data exposed through SharePoint Products and Technologies using the modern graphics capability in Silverlight.

Here's a very cool video of the Office Visual How-To Center with Silverlight.

You can find additional info related to the Silverlight BluePrint for SharePoint on MSDN.

Silverlight + Open XML

Want to see Word .docx files using a Silverlight viewer? I've seen many cool applications built using the Open XML Formats, but this one is a quite creative one :).

Check out the TextGlow Silverlight application. The Open XML format is an ECMA-ratified standard, and having a web-based runtime with the power Silverlight makes it possible to accomplish something that I don't think you could do easily with any other technology. TextGlow downloads Word documents asynchronously, opens them as ZIP files, parses them with LINQ-to-XML and then renders them using the WPF-based text and graphics APIs. (via Tim Sneath)

Silverlight Resources

Here are few interesting links and resources you can explore if you want to learn more about Silverlight:

• Windows Live Silverlight: http://silverlight.live.com/
• Silverlight Streaming SDK: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb851621.aspx
• MSDN Microsoft Silverlight Developer Center: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/bb187358.aspx
• Joe Stegman's Silverlight Tales: http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/
• Paul Andrew's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/
• Scott Gu's blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/ 

My First PodCast: SharePoint Community Interview

Happy Friday!

I was humbled when Luis Du Solier (MOSS MVP) asked if I could do an interview for the SharePoint Community in Mexico. We did the interview over the phone and in Spanish. It really was a fun experience and I enjoyed talking a bit of what I do and sharing some pointers to great developer resources for Office, MOSS, and OBA.

In this interview I talk about:

You can find a pointer to the interview here and all the details about the interview in Spanish here.

For those of you who speak Spanish and love MOSS, you should check out the SharePoint Community PodCast feed and make sure you don't miss Luis's blog for the latest news about SharePoint development.

MSDN Office Developer Center - Home Page Update

Hi there!

If you haven't noticed already, MSDN is changing the content and look-and-feel of MSDN Developer Centers. This new design pulls a lot of community elements such as OPMLs, RSS feeds for bloggers and content, featured MVPs, and latest submissions to the MSDN Code Gallery and CodePlex.

The Office Developer Documentation group updates the MSDN Office Developer Center home page every Monday morning and today we went live with the new home page content and look. Take a look!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/office

What's new in our home page?

Featured Headlines, How Do I Videos, and Downloads

We provide three RSS feeds that pull recently published content, news, and announcements (featured headlines), how do I videos (Visual How Tos), and downloads. Our home page provides a control that pulls the three feeds.

You can subscribe to our feeds as well:

• Featured Resources: http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/office/rss.xml
• "How Do I" Videos: http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/office/video.xml
• Downloads: http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/office/downloads.xml

Programs and Technologies

Our site brings together many MSDN developer portals and resource centers related to Office Development. We created an image map with quick links to our top developer portals so that you can access them quickly. We also provide links to more developer portals that Office developers visit frequently. We have many more pages and useful resources and it was tough to make them all fit here, so we also provide a link to our site map.

Featured Technology

Every week we feature an Office developer product or technology in our home page. We provide links to developer portals, top articles, top downloads, videos, or blogs that are related to an Office developer product or technology. We have tons of resources to rotate here! We are handpicking every week content with top ratings and highest number of page views.

Latest Office Developer Documentation Group Blog Posts

The Office Developer Documentation group authors and publishes developer content for many different Office programs and technologies. We have content managers and programmer writers blogging to share their knowledge with you as well as the latest news related to Office and MOSS content publishing.

You can find the Office Developer Documentation group OPML here: http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/office/devdocs.opml

Blog Posts from the Community

It is amazing how many product team members in Office share their knowledge through blogs. We compiled a list of top 40 Office product team blogs and individual bloggers who have a considerable number of RSS subscribers. We will be updating this OPML every month. You can find an OPML pull for all this bloggers on our home page.

You can also subscribe to the top 40 Office bloggers OPML here: http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/office/community.opml

Office Projects from CodePlex

If your team is taking on the challenge of collaborative development with the developer community, CodePlex is the place to go.  On CodePlex you get the benefits of a Team Foundation Server backend to help you manage your team and your project.

We created a pull that provides quick access to projects uploaded to CodePlex and tagged as "Office."

Office 2007 Code Gallery Samples

The MSDN Code Gallery is a great place to put any sample projects you may have to help our developer customers with our platforms.  Here you can create a Wiki-style page to describe your sample and upload supporting documents including screenshots, design documents, or even video files!  In addition, you can host conversations about your samples, sample projects or other resources that you have provided to the community.  You then place your code file on the releases tab to automatically receive a download count and an MS Public License click through.   

Code Gallery is, at its core, simply a community enabled site where you can share developer enabling information and resources that will be integrated into the MSDN experience.  Code Gallery is a pure storage site with no project management capabilities.

We created a pull that provides quick access to projects uploaded to Code Gallery and tagged as "Office 2007."

Featured MVP

Many talented Office and SharePoint MVPs submit articles to MSDN to share their knowledge with the community. Every week we will rotate our MVPs so you can meet them and learn more about what they do.

I think this home page update brings together the best of Office developer content published by Microsoft with the best of content crafted by the community. We hope our improved home page becomes a must stop where you can find tons of useful resources that will help you learn much more about Office Development!

Announcing the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map Version 2!

We are glad to announce the release of the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map Version 2!

The Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map is a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application that helps developers visualize the different programs, servers, services, and tools that will help them build solutions. It allows them to drill down to each product and technology and learn about new features, objects, Web services, namespaces, and schemas required to extend Microsoft Office and build custom Office Business Applications (OBAs). This application also includes links and pointers to online resources available on Office Online, MSDN, TechNet, Channel 9, Channel 10, and OBA Central.

What's New in the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map Version 2?

• Update to more than 200 links to MSDN portal pages, MSDN articles, MSDN reference documentation, blog posts, RSS feeds, and community resources.
• New products and technologies such as:
  • Office Development in Visual Studio 2008
  • PerformancePoint Server 2007
  • Unified Communications
• User interface improvements:
  • Top 2007 Office system Web sites toolbar

   

  • Scaling and scrolling to varying resolutions
  • Crisp graphics

Availability

We released this version at the Office Developer Conference 2008 held last week in San Jose, CA. The application was showcased in different booths and all attendees received a poster version of the Office Developer Roadmap that includes links to download the application.

Download the updated version from the MSDN Office Developer Center and blog about it!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/devmap

We will also publish a video demo that shows how to use the app. Link to video coming soon.

Enjoy!

Erika Ehrli and Rob Barker

Office Developer Conference 2008 Post-Conference Resources

Thanks to everyone who attended the Office Developer Conference this year! It was great seeing so many familiar faces and enthusiastic Office developers gathered once again.

I have a couple links and resources that I want to share with everyone:

Resources

Bill Gate's Keynote Video

It was such an honor to be there and watch Bill Gates deliver a keynote about Office development. He said that he likes Office and developers. He was delighted to see Office + developers together :). Watch this video.

http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0803/32116/Key_Office_Dev_MBR.asx

Bill Gates: Backstage at the Office Developer Conference

Watch this Channel 9 interview during which Bill Gates shares the history of Office as a developer platform, some hints on the future of Access, how he personally uses Office 2007, if he still writes code, and his view on whether Office has hit the productivity plateau.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=382189

Funny Videos from ODC 2008

See Mike Walker's blog for a collection of funny videos played before the keynote presentations.

OBA resources

There were several key piece of developer guidance announced at Kurt DelBene's keynote:

1. OBA Sample Application Kits for SAP and PeopleSoft

These Kits are comprised of two new exciting pieces of guidance for Office developers: the OBA Sample Application Kit for SAP v2 and a "Sneak Peak" of the OBA Sample Application Kit for PeopleSoft. They highlight Office 2007 and SharePoint with Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Visual Studio Tools for Office v 3.0. Each kit shows a model Office Business Application but specifically, the OBA for PeopleSoft shows a Human Resources Recruiting scenario and the OBA for SAP shows a Business Travel Package Management scenario.

All Office Developer Conference received a CD of the kits. Download information coming shortly.

2. OBA Platform Scenarios for Customer Service Request Management and Sales Proposal Management

Two important scenarios, Customer Service Request Management and Sales Proposal Document Management, to give Office developers, architects and the sales field the guidance they need to think about the Office platform in terms of collaborative, BI-driven enterprise applications. Both scenarios are built on Office 2007 and SharePoint using Visual Studio 2008 Professional with Visual Studio Tools for Office v 3.0 making use of features such as Open XML, Excel Services, Enterprise Search, the Business Data Catalog, UI customization, Forms Services and more.

3. Financial Services OBA Component Library

The Financial Services(FS) OBA Component Library is large set of  OBA components that aim to solve industry concerns in the Banking, Insurance and Capital Market verticals. All OBA components are based on both common financial schemas and standard web service protocols. These production grade OBA components accelerate both custom development and partner purchased solutions as they are in line with FS business process payloads.

Mike Walker has a great blog post where he shares the details.

4. OBA RAP for Loan Origination

This OBA Reference Application Pack (RAP) for Loan Origination Systems in Financial Services is a reusable loan architecture factory. The goals of this RAP are to simulate bridging the gap between disparate business capabilities across a heterogeneous banking environment, centralize business rules decoupled with computation logic, and a scalable and robust lending platform.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb265266.aspx 

5. OBA Composition Reference Toolkit

The OBA Composition Reference Toolkit brings to surface the underlying composition capabilities of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft Office 2007 System to enable a prescriptive application composition experience for Information Workers to build and deploy Office Business Applications (OBAs) using semantically related OBA Components like Workflows, SharePoint document libraries and lists, SharePoint Pages, Web Parts, VSTO Office Client Add-ins, BI Reports, BI Dashboards etc. The  toolkit comprises an OBA Composition Server and an OBA Composer. The OBA Composition Server implements metadata and provisioning services to enable cataloging OBA components, defining semantic relationships between components, defining the bindings between components and LOB systems, and to support deploying OBAs composed by users. The OBA Composer is a WPF application that consumes and uses the services of the OBA Composition Server to enable a rich client and prescriptive user experience for composing and deploying OBAs.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=382063

Open XML at the Microsoft Office Developer Conference 2008

Hi there!

I am very excited to be here in San Jose, CA attending the Office Developer Conference 2008. We had a keynote this morning with Bill Gates where he showed a video with his plans for retirement and where he talked about the value proposition of the 2007 Office system as a development platform. Bill talked about many of the different products and technologies that you can use to build Office Business Applications (OBAs), including the Open XML formats!

Open XML is an open standard for word-processing documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that can be freely implemented by multiple applications on different platforms. Open XML is designed to faithfully represent existing word-processing documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that are encoded in binary formats defined by Microsoft Office applications. The reason for the need for Open XML is simple: billions of documents now exist but, unfortunately, the information in those documents is tightly coupled with the programs that created them. The purpose of the Open XML standard is to decouple documents created by Microsoft Office applications so that they can be manipulated by other applications independent of proprietary formats and without the loss of data.

You can find more detailed documentation about Open XML at the Open XML Formats Resource Center and at OpenXMLDeveloper.org.

If you are attending the Microsoft Office Developer Conference 2008, and want to learn more about Open XML, here's some information that you may find useful:

Open XML Conference Sessions

What's Up, DOC? Open XML Formats, OpenDocument Format, and the Revolutionary Implications of XML in Productivity Applications: Industry debate about the relative merits of Open XML Formats and OpenDocument Format highlights the significance of the productivity application market shift from binary and propriety file formats to vendor- and product-independent XML models. The competitive stakes are huge, and the related political posturing is sometimes perplexing. In this overview, Burton Group Research Director Peter O'Kelly introduces Open XML Formats, OpenDocument Format, and related World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, and projects their implications for the future of productivity application-bases information management.

Track: Executive Session: EXE104 (Feb 12 – 10:45 am to noon) Presenter : Peter O'Kelly (Burton Group Research Director)

Developing document centric solutions using Open XML and VSTO "v3": The coming of the 2007 Office System introduced the Open XML File Formats, an XML based file format allowing deep integration of documents in your business processes. No longer is a document a black-box containing data, instead the document is the data. In this session you will learn about solution capabilities of Open XML, how to work with data and documents on the server and how to enable Informa tion Workers on the client side using Visual Studio Tools for Office ""v3"".

Track: Client Session: CLI304 Presenter: Wouter van Vugt

Using LINQ to XML to query and transform Open XML documents: Learn how to use the powerful .NET language-integrated query (LINQ) to process Open XML documents. See how these concepts are applied to build the Open XML Power Tools which are a set of Windows Powershell cmdlets that help you build Open XML document workflows quickly and easily.

Track: Client Session: CLI306 Presenter : Eric White (Microsoft) , Johann Granados (StaffDotNet)

Generating Enterprise Content using InfoPath 2007, SharePoint and the Microsoft SDK for Open XML Formats: Be introduced to the Microsoft SDK for Open XML formats and show how developers can use the SDK and InfoPath 2007 to generate Microsoft Office documents on the server from data stored in SharePoint form libraries.

Track: Client Session: CLI307 Presenter : John Holiday

Office Business Application that Supports Microsoft's Top Executives: Discover how Office Open XML file format allows developers to manipulate server side workbooks to provide end users with secure scorecard viewing experience in the browser and not sacrifice Microsoft Excel 2007 rich client functionality while meeting the requirement of no client side code install.

Track: Real World Session: RLW302 Presenter: Sergei Gundorov, Mike Reese

Use the Open XML SDK and LINQ to XML to Program the Open XML File Formats: Although the packaging API makes it possible to manipulate the Open XML Formats directly, it doesn't make it easy. The Open XML SDK provides a consistent and neat wrapper around the API, making it far easier to get to the parts you need. Once you get to the part, however, you're still simply working with XML content. To make this easier, LINQ to XML provides a superb tool. Both C# and Visual Basic provide support for LINQ to XML, but Visual Basic adds specific features that make the process far easier. In this session, you'll see how to use the Open XML SDK, LINQ to XML, and Visual Basic's superb support for XML handling to manipulate Open XML File Formats. Special attention will be paid to the issues involved in handling namespace resolution, a tricky issue in any situation.

Track: Client Session: CLI314 Presenter : Ken Getz

Hands On Labs

Exploring the New, Flexible XML Programmability in Microsoft® Office Word 2007: Be introduced to the concepts of the XML data store and XML binding features of Microsoft Office Word 2007. Program against a sample document while learning how to work with structured information in Office Word 2007 that is stored independently of the presentation surface. Explore the capabilities of the new data store and XML binding and allow you to gain insight on how these features enable the creation of document-based Office Word 2007 solutions.

Understanding the Structure and Solution Capabilities of the Open XML Formats: Become familiar with the new 2007 Microsoft Office programs file formats. Examine sample documents for each of the 2007 Office programs that implement the Open XML Format. Learn how to edit documents by directly manipulating files without the use of the Microsoft Office programs. Explore the new default Microsoft Office programs file formats and gain insights on the new solution possibilities they enable for creating solutions.

Open XML Booth

Ken Getz, Wouter Van Vugt, Sanjay Kumar Madhva, and I will be at the Open XML booth. If you are attending the conference, come talk to us! We are all glad to share our experiences with developing solutions with Open XML and to help you find answers related to this exciting technology. Here's our schedule:

Open XML Developer Roadmap

Doug Mahugh, Frank Rice, and I created a new poster to help you discover the different components, markup languages, and vocabularies you can use to create Open XML solutions.

You can find the poster at the Open XML booth and if you are not attending the conference, you can download a copy of this poster from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=134BCB91-DD7B-4209-AC94-2699B9366874&displaylang=en

What's New for Developers in VSTO 3.0

Visual Studio Tools for the Office system (3.0) is the key developer technology that enables you to create scalable, LOB solutions for Microsoft Office by using the Office development features included with Visual Studio 2008.

Steve Fox and I thought it would be a great idea to write an article that talks about the evolution of Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office and Office Development, how it all relates to Office Business Applications, the different business productivity solutions you can build using VSTO, and a brief overview of the rich set of features with which to build and deploy customized Office Business Applications using VSTO. We also provided links to resources that provide a deep dive to each feature.

The figure below shows the benefits of VSTO 3.0:

I really recommend reading our article. It is a good resource that will help you get started with Office development in Visual Studio 2008.

Also, if you are looking for detailed code samples, videos, and articles related to VSTO 3.0, please explore our MSDN technical articles, Visual How Tos, and reference documentation. Of course. the VSTO team blog is a must see.

Enjoy!

Office Business Applications: Pricing Exception Management Solution

If you are looking for a real-world application that showcases how to expose data from SAP using the 2007 Microsoft Office system here's one:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977552.aspx

Long story short, the Microsoft IT department designed and implemented a Price Exception Management application using a custom Office Business Application solution. This solution exposes and synchronizes real-time data in SAP, and provides a workflow routing and approval component that helps provide a consistent user interface (UI) for approvers.

I had the opportunity to work with some of the developers and program managers of this application. We thought it would be quite interesting to share with the developer community how this application was built and what can be accomplished by creating custom Office Business Applications that help solve business problems. Office Business Applications are a new breed of applications that use the Microsoft Office system to find and surface LOB information. Office Business Applications enable businesses to extend the Microsoft Office clients and servers into business processes running in LOB applications.

What is a pricing exception management solution?

Sales employees in the field can request special deals and discounts for products for different markets. Depending on the promotion, an approval request can be routed to different managers. If a request is approved, the price change and request should be synchronized to a pricing system (SAP) and the sales employee that requested the promotion should be notified of approval.

To create this workflow, the Microsoft IT department used different technologies including ASP.NET, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Excel 2007, and the Open XML File Formats.

One of the most interesting components of this application is a set of Excel 2007 spreadsheets used to store notification and routing rules. These spreadsheets are used as decision tables and a workflow routing and approval process component reduces the time of the importing those rules by parsing the underlying Open XML File Formats files that make up an .xlsx file.

Because this is an application running in a production environment, we couldn't disclose detailed implementation details. However, we were as thorough as we could to share with you the architecture details of this solution.

We also created a video that walks you through the overall workflow and different components that make this solution.

Watch video in full screen 

We hope this article and video can help you understand how OBAs can enable businesses to extend the Microsoft Office clients and servers into business processes running in LOB applications.

Enjoy!

2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference (ODC 2008) Update

The 2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference (ODC 2008) is only 9 weeks away and shaping up to be an exciting event that will redefine what Office development is all about!

ODC at a Glance

When: February 10-13, 2008	Where: San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California	Who: Developers, Developers, Developers (Architects and Executives, too)	What: The Office Platform. Clients, servers, services and tools.
Registration Site

Event Overview

ODC 2008 is the premier event for Microsoft Office developers, bringing together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders, and key partners in a public forum to redefine what it means to be focused on 2007 Microsoft® Office system development.

We have six keynotes by senior Microsoft executives. Of course, live code and demos will be the order of the day, and we will be presenting hot new sessions that bring together diverse topics, from composition to S+S, SharePoint to VOIP, OOXML to Silverlight, and everything in between!

We have 5 technical tracks, and 70+ breakout sessions and hands-on labs.  And for the first time ever, we will have an Executive Track where analysts, Microsoft and industry executives will get together to learn the how and why of Office applications and the competitive advantage offered by them.

Check out our ODC 2008 Blog for what's happening on a daily basis

Keynotes

General Session Keynote: Microsoft Chairman, William H. Gates

Additional keynotes by:

• Chris Capossela, CVP, Microsoft Business Division Product Management Group
• Kurt DelBene, CVP Microsoft Office Business Platform Group
• Rajesh Jha CVP, Office Live
• Richard McAniff, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Office
• Gurdeep Singh Pall, Corporate Vice President, Unified Communications Group – MS

ODC Tracks and Blogs

ODC tracks are all owned by Office product managers; check out all the latest information on their breakout sessions, code & demos.

• ODC Team Blog – Join the blog
• Karthik's Track - Architecture -  Join the blog
• Steve's Track - Client – Join the blog
• Jerome's Track - Server – Join the blog
• Rob's Track - Services – Join the blog
• John's Track - Real World – Join the blog
• Office Development Executive Track - Join the blog

Sessions

We have 70+ innovative sessions and labs planned. Here's just a sampling:

• Building Mashups With Office Live Small Business
• Software+Services Blueprints
• Integrating VBA Macro and .NET Managed Code
• Integrating WPF & WCF into Your Office Applications
• Develop Business Insight with SharePoint 2007
• Building Composite Business Solutions on the Office Platform