Hi, my name is Andrew Toner and I'm also in the OBA team. When I talk to people about OBA, many get it right away but some ask the following question in some shape or form: Why would anyone develop on the Office Business Platform?
It's an important question and I wanted to take a couple of minutes to try to answer it.
Lets spin it around… why not? The chances are that you (or your organization) use Office. You (they) probably use it a lot. I’m also guessing the Office applications are used for the unstructured “reality” of work. Just because the flowchart a management consultant gave you for the sales process is structured it doesn’t mean that’s how you get things done in “the real world”. Where do you spend your time? Personally I spend a huge amount of my working day in Outlook (40%) and the next on the list is Excel (25%) or Word (25%) and then some other 3rd party applications (10%). So why leave? Surely having the information from other systems be available to you where you are is useful? How often do you Alt-Tab to another application, cut and paste (or worse… try to read and remember) some information, only to Alt-Tab back and paste (or remember incorrectly)? I bet the answer is “too many times”. Writing an application that becomes yet another app on the start menu only increases that frustration as well as increasing the other indirect frustrations like training. Having the information surface in the application you’re in (and know very well), when you need it, is far better than producing yet another app. Think as OBAs as reducing the Alt-Tab frustration.
So that’s the usability argument, but what about that infrastructure you’ve spent many thousands of dollars on? Wouldn’t it be good if you actually used it correctly and efficiently? If the users at the client end are busy Alt-Tabing themselves to oblivion and cutting and pasting the wrong data, the chances are the back end is idle (or at least not as busy as it could / should be) and being populated with incorrect data. So all that time on making sure that your SQL, BizTalk and / or your chosen back end infrastructure run like clockwork is wasted because your client front end isn’t cutting it.
How about If Word is used to create a quote? The OBA pulls the client information from the back end saving any embarrassing mistakes. The OBA helps ensure that part numbers are correctly selected and then sends the quoted information back to the back end. All this and the user hasn’t left Word. Your users are efficient; the quote is correct and it’s completely traceable by the back end systems giving you accurate information to help run your business.
Does that help answer the question?
- Andrew
