With the first release of the OBA Sample Application Kit for SAP, http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/obasapsak, you learned the concepts around OBAs. These powerful composite applications bring Line-of-Business (LOB) data (e.g. SAP, PeopleSoft, or Dynamics) to the end-user’s fingertips within the context of the Office applications they use and know.
Version 1.0 of the Sample Application Kit for SAP was built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007. Version 2.0 is built on SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 using Visual Studio 2010.
The sample application is a travel package booking application designed to allow users to work within their familiar Microsoft Office environment to access and update some LOB data in SAP.
The sample application is composed of an Excel 2010 add-in, and on SharePoint 2010, a Silverlight user experience is used for interacting with LOB data via Business Connectivity Services (BCS).Each part of the sample application is developed, at least partially, with Visual Studio 2010.
The SharePoint portion, of course, uses SharePoint specific tools.The OBA Sample Application Kit for SAP v. 2.0 accesses data from both SAP via Web services and from SQL Server.
These OBA resources were recommended reading for v. 1.0 and still provide an excellent conceptual foundation for v. 2.0:
- Six Office Business Applications (MS Press) or Programming Microsoft Office Business Applications (MS Press).
-
Overview of an OBA: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb614538.aspx
3. Overview of OBA Solution Patterns: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb614541.aspx
So, with the above in hand what is this OBA Sample Application Kit for SAP v. 2.0?
In many cases, developers don’t have the knowledge on how to programmatically integrate Office applications with LOB systems.
What this kit provides is guidance on how you can integrate with Web services that have been generated from within SAP and then consume those services within a .NET and managed code environment.
The OBA Sample Application Kit for SAP v. 2.0 (one in a series of kits) includes a deep dive technical document, istallation document, demo walkthrough document of the end-user experience and source code.
The sample application kit is composed of an Excel 2010 add-in and a SharePoint 2010 site.
The Excel 2010 add-in facilitates the process of purchasing packages, maintaining packages and associated events and booking flights.
The application is also used to dynamically generate PowerPoint 2010 presentations using the Open XML SDK.
These PowerPoint 2010 presentations are shown to potential customers and display marketing information designed to entice customers to purchase packages.
The SharePoint 2010 site is a web site that enables the browsing of packages, events, flights and customer data.
The goal of the kit is to provide developers with information on how they can learn to programmatically integrate SAP with Office and SharePoint using Visual Studio 2010.
So click on the Downloads tab where you’ll find links to the documents and source code.
Please note that the download items are unsupported and are intended only for instructional use.
Additional Office and SharePoint Resources:
1. Office Developer Training Course on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/Office2010DeveloperTrainingCourse .
- SharePoint DeveloperTraining Course on MSDN:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/SP2010DevTrainingCourse
3. SharePoint Sideshow for Developers on Channel 9:http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/SharePointSideshow
4. Video instructions for how to get and setup a turn-key VHD for Office and SharePoint development and demo: http://bit.ly/hSd8nJ .
5. Office Developer Center on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/office
I hope you enjoy the v. 2.0 kit, and if you’re looking for something on PeopleSoft integration, the OBA Sample Application Kit for PeopleSoft v. 2.0 is here, http://bit.ly/obapsftsak20 .
SharePoint Samurai 