Some OBA Ramblings at Collaborate 09!

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So I’ve been here in sunny Orlando for the past few days attending the Collaborate 09 conference, a conference that focuses predominantly on Oracle technology (https://collaborate09.com/).

I presented a couple of times this week. The first session was on Monday and focused on an OBA that a company named Aellius have created—I co-presented in this one. It’s a great OBA that integrates JD Edwards with Office. You can check them out here: https://www.aellius.com. The second presentation was one that I did this morning and covered how to integrate Office and SharePoint with PeopleSoft. I covered client-side assemblies in Outlook and Word and then discussed how to use the Business Data Catalog (BDC) and then Silverlight as ways of integrating PeopleSoft (and indeed wider LOB systems) into SharePoint.  I showed a few demos and have posted some materials for your viewing pleasure in my Skydrive folder. Included in the folder, you’ll find:

1. The deck from the 05/06/09 session;

2. Some simple source code from the Office Word Doc and Silverlight and SharePoint demos along with the Recruiting database and BDC application definition file (ADF);

3. A couple of (un-narrated) videos that show you how to 1) create a web service in PeopleSoft and 2) how to create an ADF in the BDC Definition Editor (free tool that ships with the SP 2007 SDK).

A couple of things to note. You’ll need to have SQL Server (even Express) to use the db, and then you’ll need to add it to your VS project. You’ll also have to build and upload the Silverlight XAP file to your SharePoint site to get that working (see my earlier post on how to do this: Silverlight, SharePoint, Services…Oh Yeah!!!.

You can download the code for the end-to-end demo I showed (the Outlook and SharePoint integration around the recruiting scenario) here: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/obapsftsak 

I will try and re-record the vids when I get back to the office with some narration, but at least you have a visual walkthrough to get you started.

For those of you that are going to TechEd in Los Angeles next week, I’ll see you there!

Steve