Entries tagged with oba - Channel 9

Creating an OBA - Word Add-in for CRM

Girish Raja — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:41:00 GMT

In this screencast, we'll see how to create a simple OBA application (word add-in) that pulls data from Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Check out http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/The-Dynamics-Duo-talk-about-CRM-and-Office-Business-Applications-OBA/ for some of the possibilities with such applications.

Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/girishr/ for code samples and related screencasts.

The Dynamics Duo talk about CRM and Office Business Applications (OBA)

Ben Riga — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:11:00 GMT

In the last episode we talked about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server; in this one we talk about Microsoft Office on the client side.

CRM actually integrates really really well with Microsoft Office Outlook right out of the box. That’s a natural as it’s the place where many people work day-in day-out (and especially those sales and marketing folks). But what about those people that need that data in Word or Excel? In this episode we talk about how easy it is to customize the integration of Dynamics CRM with Microsoft Office on the client side. This category of applications, often referred to as Office Business Applications (OBA), help to unlock the value of line-of-business (LOB) systems, such as the ones built on the Dynamics CRM platform, and turn document-based processes into real applications. There’s lots more info about these types of apps over at OBA Central.

In the demo Girish put together, we see how the app is surfaced with a custom ribbon. This in turn opens a Status Report template which has a custom task pane. That task pane pulls all the relevant information for my status report from the CRM server (in our case CRM Online). It authenticates and then grabs the project info. When I choose a Project it also pulls in the work items for that project. Just like with the SharePoint example, it’s trivial to open a CRM form right from within Word where I review more detailed info or even start an Office Communicator session with the owner of the work item.

I can then insert the work items along with descriptions and hours worked directly into the status report. Since you’ll want to share that status report with your customer, Girish built in the ability to publish it to Office Live Small Business. Office Live is the ideal place for sharing documents with customers or partners who won’t have access to SharePoint sites behind your firewall (and it’s free!).

The secret sauce that allows these kinds of apps to be developed so quickly is right in Visual Studio in the form of Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). As you might expect, the same authentication code we used in the SharePoint example is used for authentication from with the OBA. Then it’s just a case of using the Dynamics CRM web services to pull info from CRM and post it into the Word doc. Nice!

Digital Asset Management with Interactive Media Manager

Kirk Evans — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:57:21 GMT

Kirk Evans interviews Mark Kashman, the Product Manager for Interactive Media Manager. IMM is a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system built on top of SharePoint 2007. In this episode, we take a look at the architecture of IMM, see it in action, and we even see a sneak preview of a Silverlight-based rough cut editor that will be a part of the next version of IMM. We also hear how Starz is using IMM to manage their assets and create cut lists for feature promos.

Javed Sikander: Introduction to the OBA Composition Reference Toolkit

Charles — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:28:33 GMT

Platform Architecture Director Javed Sikander discusses the new OBA Composition Reference Toolkit which was just announced at ODC 2008.

OBA has come a very long way since we last chatted with Javed on C9. The OBA Composer, which ships as part of the toolkit, is really impressive WYSIYG designer tool for Sharepoint applications.

Check it out.

VS2008 Training Kit: Building SharePoint Workflows

DavidAiken — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:04:02 GMT

Hi and welcome to another Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit screencast.

This session was presented by Rohit Puri and is the from the Visual Studio 2008 training kit available from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397.

This session demonstrates how VSTO reduces complexity and greatly speeds development of SharePoint workflow from within Visual Studio.

Recorded September 2007.

VS2008 Training Kit: Extending the Office Fluent UI using VSTO

DavidAiken — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:01:28 GMT

Hi and welcome to another Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit screencast.

This session was presented by Rohit Puri and is the from the Visual Studio 2008 training kit available from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397.

This session is to help developers understand how they can easily extend the Office Fluent UI using powerful ribbon design tools that are available in VSTO.

Recorded September 2007.

VS2008 Training Kit: Overview of Office Business Applications and VSTO

DavidAiken — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:57:53 GMT

Hi and welcome to another Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit screencast.

This session was presented by Rohit Puri and is the from the Visual Studio 2008 training kit available from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397.

This session is designed to help developers learn how Visual Studio Tools for Office enables them to leverage Visual Studio and the Microsoft Office platform to build scalable line-of-business solutions based on Microsoft Office.

Recorded September 2007.

VBA interop with VSTO managed code in VS 2008

Daniel Moth — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:29:00 GMT

Author: Hi, I am Daniel Moth :-)

Introduction: With VSTO v3.0 the attraction to write managed code in order to customise Office applications is huge. However, if you already have investments in VBA code, you do not need to throw it out just yet. Just interop, like I show in this 8' video. For other resources, start at my blog post here.

Video download: Click on the image to play the video (from a streaming file). If you'd prefer to download the wmv packaged in a zip file, you may do so here.

Office Task Panes and Actions Pane in VS2008

Daniel Moth — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:15:00 GMT

Author: Hi, I am Daniel Moth :-)

Introduction: Learn how to program Custom Task Panes and the Actions Pane. If you are a managed developer (e.g. Windows Forms) then you'll find that you already have the skills for extending Microsoft Office applications with your code. Visual Studio 2008 makes it really easy and that is what I demonstrate in this 14' video. For other resources, start at my blog post here.

Video download: Click on the image to play the video (from a streaming file). If you'd prefer to download the wmv packaged in a zip file, you may do so here.

Outlook Form Regions in Visual Studio 2008

Daniel Moth — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:15:00 GMT

Author: Hi, I am Daniel Moth :-)

Introduction: Exploit Outlook Form Regions. If you are a managed developer (e.g. Windows Forms) then you'll find that you already have the skills for extending Microsoft Office applications with your code. Visual Studio 2008 makes it really easy and that is what I demonstrate in this 15' video. For other resources, start at my blog post here.

Video download: Click on the image to play the video (from a streaming file). If you'd prefer to download the wmv packaged in a zip file, you may do so here.

Word Content Controls in Visual Studio 2008

Daniel Moth — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:14:00 GMT

Author: Hi, I am Daniel Moth :-)

Introduction: Get started with Word content controls. If you are a managed developer (e.g. Windows Forms) then you'll find that you already have the skills for extending Microsoft Office applications with your code. Visual Studio 2008 makes it really easy and that is what I demonstrate in this 12' video. For other resources, start at my blog post here.

Video download: Click on the image to play the video (from a streaming file). If you'd prefer to download the wmv packaged in a zip file, you may do so here.

Office Ribbon Customisation in Visual Studio 2008

Daniel Moth — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:58:00 GMT

Author: Hi, I am Daniel Moth :-)

Introduction: Explore Ribbon customisation. If you are a managed developer (e.g. Windows Forms) then you'll find that you already have the skills for extending Microsoft Office applications with your code. Visual Studio 2008 makes it really easy and that is what I demonstrate in this 20' video. For other resources, start at my blog post here.

Video download: Click on the image to play the video (from a streaming file). If you'd prefer to download the wmv packaged in a zip file, you may do so here.

ARCast.TV - Office Business Apps @ Epicor (Part 3)

Ron Jacobs — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:09:45 GMT

In this final installment with Epicor we discuss the challenges, the hard things about making this all work and take a look at a demo of the Epicor integration with Outlook 2007

OSIsoft: Real-Time Monitoring and Analytics - The Power of PI, Part 2

Charles — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:54:18 GMT

Global carbon regulation is arguably the largest risk and opportunity most corporations will face in the beginning of the 21st century. It has been estimated that turnover in the global carbon marketplace could exceed a trillion dollars in the next five to ten years. Voluntary and mandatory reporting protocols are emerging. How can an organization know its true carbon footprint and exposure? What options are available to manage corporate carbon risk? What impact can energy efficiency programs have on reducing a corporation’s carbon footprint? Read whitepaper

OSIsoft’s real-time monitoring solutions help companies improve the overall energy efficiency of their organization while simultaneously reducing its carbon footprint. In fact, Microsoft uses OSIsoft PI infrastructure for their Data Center Energy management. Also at a recent, OSIsoft user group meeting, Kodak presented on how they were able conserve energy and reduce their operational costs by using OSIsoft software.

Several case studies exist on OSIsoft’s website which can be viewed at http://www.osisoft.com/Resources/Case%20Studies

Here, we continue our discussion with some of the developers who make PI. OSISoft's founder and CEO, Dr. Pat Kennedy, starts off this part with some very interesting example of systems that use PI. I bet you wouldn't think ice breaking ships in the Artic would rely on PI...

Cast of characters:

Prabal Acharya, ex-OSIsoft-customer to ex-engineering to now Director, Microsoft Global Alliance
Alex Zheng, Team Lead, PI Server & Analytics
Jason King, Senior Developer, PI Clients
Denis Vacher, Lead Developer, PI Server Core and Niner
Dr. Pat Kennedy – Founder and CEO
Mark Hughes – CTO

See Tim Sneath for lending us his office without his permission. Asking to use it would have resulted in all kinds of wasted time, so bypassing that step was a great convenience for us.)

CoCreate integrates CAD and Sharepoint

Doug Mahugh — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 14:49:41 GMT

In this video, Dr. Peter Ernst of CoCreate (a Microsoft Partner in Germany) demonstrates how their One Space Designer product is tightly integrated with Sharepoint to enable bi-directional communication between a CAD application and Sharepoint workspaces. A custom panel within One Space Designer provides live interoperability with MOSS including task lists, RSS feeds, and other functionality.

The custom UI panel is deliberately modeled after Office's Tools -> Shared Workspace interface, so from the user's perspective it feels like you're in Microsoft Office without ever leaving CoCreate's solid modeling application. There is a lot of complexity under the surface that makes it all possible, but Dr. Ernst goes through a very simple demo scenario that makes the benefits of this approach easy to see and understand.

For more information about CoCreate, see "Building Office Business Applications: A New Breed of Business Applications Built on the 2007 Microsoft Office System".

Javed Sikander: Office 2007- Office Business Application

Charles — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 23:08:30 GMT

Javed Sikander is the Director of Industry Architecture for DPE (Developer and Platform Evangelism). Recently, it was announced that Office 2007 provides a new type of application model for collaboration: Office Buisness Application (OBA). What's OBA? Tune in.

Read documentation here.