Office Business Applications (OBAs) use application composition to leverage the client and server technologies of the 2007 Microsoft Office system along with line-of-business (LOB) data and logic to build new applications to solve business problems. Using 2007 Microsoft Office client applications already familiar to users, .NET customizations can add controls to the user interface, data binding, Web service integration, and custom logic. Activities between clients and servers can be coordinated using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The 2007 Microsoft Office system has added new features that make it into a comprehensive platform for bringing line-of-business data to familiar client applications. The six primary features, consisting of workflow, search, the Business Data Catalog, the extensible user interface, open XML file formats, and the unified Website and security framework, come together to unify the platform and reduce the code required to create enterprise-class applications. The open XML file formats, Document Information Panel, customizable ribbon, and application-level customizations were not available with Office 2003 development.

While customers and partners with existing Information Bridge Framework (IBF) investments may choose to continue with IBF for select projects, Microsoft recommends that customers and partners do not invest in new IBF-based solutions. Instead, Microsoft recommends that Microsoft Office solution development projects utilize Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 SE (VSTO 2005 SE) and native platform capabilities. IBF will continue to be supported through Product Support Services at least until the official release of the LOBi technologies in the Microsoft Office 14 timeframe.

Visual Studio 2005 supports OBA development using Visual Studio Tools for Office Second Edition (VSTO SE). In addition, 2007 Microsoft Office client applications need to be installed for testing and you need to have Primary Interop Assemblies (PIAs) installed. Server products are not required for solutions that call for integration between client-only and LOB systems. Access to appropriate LOB systems is needed as appropriate for the solution.

Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 Second Edition, or VSTO 2005 SE, is Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, formerly known by the codename "Cypress." It's a fully-supported add-on to Visual Studio 2005 which gives developers the ability to build applications targeting the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It provides development support for Office Outlook, Office Excel, Office Word, Office PowerPoint, Office InfoPath, and Office Visio, and is available free of charge to all Visual Studio 2005 Professional and Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office licensees.

Client applications support extensions at the document-level or the application-level. The Microsoft Office Fluent interface, including the Ribbon, can be extended with new panels. These can appear contextually and offer a much richer interface than possible with either menus or toolbars. A Ribbon extension can provide commonly-used company-specific actions such as inserting a legal footer or populating XML-based metadata.

The task pane can host any .NET controls with the full ability to perform data binding, invoke Web services, or access line-of-business data or logic. Interactive scenarios such as selecting categories and line items from combo boxes and tables can be embedded in the task pane. This makes it possible to embed a complete user interface for enterprise actions directly into a Microsoft Office client.

Add-ins can execute .NET code to access or manipulate a document based on events such as startup, loading, saving, printing, or sections of a document changing. Add-ins can access data from databases, servers, or Web services and perform appropriate actions within the document and can integrate with LOB systems, such as SAP.

Custom smart tags activate based on recognizing text within the document. Contextual actions such as inserting a customer’s address or a product’s current price can be offered right at the point of the relevant text.

A rich programming model offers flexibility to work with the document in various ways, including exposing the content as a collection of objects, enabling XML schemas to be attached, and even arbitrary data to be cached in the document to retain the state independent of the user’s document data.

The Document Information Panel within Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, and Office PowerPoint 2007 can be used to capture structured information about documents beyond the basic properties of title and subject. A custom XML schema defines the information format, and can be created using Office InfoPath 2007.

Among other things, Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides the ability to centrally manage documents, create portals, publish documents, and enable collaboration. Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides search and aggregation facilities that allow companies to treat documents like the base of information that they are.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can house the master version of a document and control access to the document to allow some users to make changes or only view the data. Documents can optionally be downloaded or viewed in a browser. Permissions can be fine-tuned so only the right people can make changes.

By storing documents in SharePoint libraries, data can be exposed in dashboards via Web parts to provide unified views of key metrics within a company. As work is completed, documents progress through their workflow to ensure that approvals are granted, and that all processes are followed.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be extended by creating custom Web parts for embedding in dashboards, custom workflow steps, server-side application logic through Excel spreadsheets, business-data entity definitions through the Business Data Catalog, and more. Applications can directly access the search index, query or update workflow definitions, and more using standard Web service calls.

Office Communications Server 2007 uses industry-standard protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). It is programmable using the Real-time Communications (RTC) Application Programming Interface (API). Applications can access presence information and send instant messages based on users, groups, or roles.

Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual Studio Team System Edition both support this type of development. Find out more or download trial editions.

VBA development centered on Visual Basic syntax for creating code extensions at the document level. VSTO uses .NET managed code within a tight security model to offer advanced extensibility directly into the 2007 Microsoft Office object model. Code is safer, easier to administrate, and more powerful, with deeper integration. Assemblies can be signed and security policies can use the signature as evidence to help prevent unauthorized code from executing in the enterprise. Visual Studio also offers advanced designers for user interfaces, data sets, and XML schemas. All the power of .NET development is available.

Both Visual Basic and C# 2005 are fully supported.

No. A separate runtime containing assemblies for both Office 2003 and 2007 Microsoft Office sytem VSTO customizations can be downloaded from the Microsoft Office Download Center. This runtime is required for application-level or document-level client customizations. This is independent of the deployment of any server-side customizations.

The .NET Framework 2.0 redistributable package must already be installed, in addition to at least one of the following:

• Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003
• Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 (only application-level add-ins work with Office Standard Edition)
• Microsoft Word 2003
• Microsoft Excel 2003
• Microsoft InfoPath 2003
• Microsoft Outlook 2003
• Microsoft Office Visio 2003
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
• 2007 Microsoft Office system
• Microsoft Office Word 2007
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
• Microsoft Office Visio 2007
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007