Love IBF?

Do you love the Information Bridge Framework (IBF) but feel at a loss now that it is not supported by Office 2007? I've been working with Scot Hillier and Bhushan Nene to provide you with a white paper complete with sample code on how you can use the Business Data Catalog and Visual Studio Tools for Office SE to build custom applications, surfacing it all up in the client through smart tags and custom UI. Scot and Bhushan have created a great white paper and solution to show you how you can build solutions on Office 2007 and still surface your LOB data to allow users to work within context with the look of feel of IBF.

Using the Business Data Catalog and Smart Tags with the 2007 Office System

This code sample and white paper walks through a custom solution that integrates LOB data with the 2007 Microsoft Office system to support the preparation of documents within Microsoft Office Word 2007. The solution presented uses product information contained within a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database to support the creation of a quote sheet.

In this scenario, a manufacturing sales representative uses a solution based on Office Word 2007, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition, and the business data catalog feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition to access product information and create a new quote sheet. The solution allows the sales representative to easily browse product information from within Office Word and insert the information into a quote document template. Furthermore, the solution uses smart tags to identify product numbers within the quote and display detailed information contained in the business data catalog through Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Enjoy!