OBA RAP for Public Sector (E-Forms Processing)

  • Article

As I mentioned in my last post, I've had the opportunity to work on a number cool solutions in recent months. One solution that I've been privileged to work on and help deliver is the Office Business Application Reference Architecture Pack for Public Sector (wow, say that 5 times fast!) and it has just been released to MSDN. This reference architecture provides prescriptive architecture and guidance for addressing a major business problem within today's Public Sector organizations, that being the processing of electronic forms. It illustrates how an OBA (Office Business Application) can be built to automate and optimize forms processing. The reference solution framework showcased in the RAP is generic and can be adapted to enable end-to-end processing of a number of electronic forms in the Public Sector.

This OBA solution was built using a number of technologies from the 2007 Office System and .NET 3.0 platforms. Among those technologies include:

  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
  • Microsoft Office InfoPath Forms Services
  • Windows Workflow Foundation
  • Windows Communication Foundation
  • Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

Also included as a part of the RAP are a number of supplementary materials including a click through demo, videos, technical and business presentations, and architecture whitepapers. The RAP is being bundled as a Virtual Machine image, which will include the working application and source code and will be made available from our Microsoft Connect website. You will be able to download the Virtual Machine image from there and can use either Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005, which are both free, to run the solution.

This version of the RAP only marks phase I of a multi-phased approach for delivering OBA capabilities to address E-forms processing. In future releases we'll be introducing more advanced capabilities, including:

  • Personalized citizen portals
  • Live Collaboration and Communication (Citizen to Organization, Organization to Citizen)
  • E-Forms analytics and activity monitoring
  • Advanced Office client integration for information workers
  • Rich Internet Application (RIA) capabilities via Silverlight
  • Integration of information cards using Windows CardSpace

So keep your browsers tuned into the many exciting things that'll be coming out of Public Sector.

Enjoy!
- Lamont