This book takes a practical problem-solution approach to common business challenges. You’ll not only encounter interesting code samples, but also see how to combine these examples with the Microsoft collaboration platform’s services. The book’s solutions focus on using Visual Studio 2008 and its built-in Office development tools to construct the user interface layer. And solutions can interact with SharePoint as a service provider, taking advantage of SharePoint’s many collaboration features like document repositories, collaboration sites, and search functions.

This book is unique because it starts with challenges that end users deal with every day when using the Microsoft collaboration platform to support business processes. The solutions are presented as hypothetical business challenges of a fictional company. By presenting the examples in this context, author Ed Hild makes it easier to relate to the challenges and solution value. The goal of these examples is to build applications that apply the benefits of the Office desktop interface to the richness of SharePoint collaboration features. This book will help you develop real-world solutions to complex business problems and challenges.

What you’ll learn

• Delve into an end-to-end walkthrough in each chapter of a practical business challenge.
• See code samples, user interface design, and platform integration all in the context of real-world problems.
• Discover custom code and implementation advice for popular Office and SharePoint features like custom web parts, Office add-ins, SharePoint features, workflow, the Business Data Catalog, Outlook form regions, the Office Open XML file format, and more.

Who this book is for

This book is of great value to intermediate and advanced developers working on enterprise applications based on the Microsoft Office or SharePoint systems, or working on integration projects with third-party vendors.

Table of Contents

1. Office Business Applications  
2. SharePoint 2010: Overview and New Features  
3. SharePoint Development with Visual Studio 2010  
4. Microsoft Office Overview for Developers  
5. Beyond the Spreadsheet  
6. Merging SharePoint List Data into Word Documents  
7. Automating Document Assembly  
8. Extending PowerPoint to Build a Presentation 8: Based on Site Content  
9. Building a Presentation Server-Side within a Web Part  
10. Surfacing Line-of-Business Data in Outlook  
11. Site Provisioning Workflows  
12. Rapid SharePoint Application Development Using Access  
13. Using Visio Services to Visualize Data  
14. Building Mashups  
15. Realizing the Vision