How to use the .NET Framework 3.0 in the context of Microsoft Office and SAP WebServices?

Back from a series of workshops in APAC and the US I'm on the way to reorganize the interop content on https://www.microsoft-sap.com and some other sites. Part of this is to publish a couple of papers and components including the one below:

When SAP planned to publish every Function Module as an WebServices (a while ago) I had the idea to prototype an application which uses this scenario end2end without an integration infrastructure like BizTalk or SAP XI.

Smart clients are barely found today so I choosed Office as the front end application (Word as one of a couple of Office apps can be extended using XML packages to consume WebServices, Outlook can be extended using VSTO now - this is relly great!). Coordinating all this in a new architecture (SOA in terms of reusability and encapsulation of functionallity) could be done in WinFX now part of the .NET framework 3.0 (nothing changed with the runtime, those components are still in version 2.0). The Communication Foundation and the Workflow Capabilities are indeed a nice framework for custom applications. For an overall approach to Enterprise managed applications one could go with BizTalk of course as well.

So we have included

- Office Word (as a form and front end to the user)
- Office Outlook (as the end point for human interaction in the workflow)
- WCF for the communication to SAP's Web Services
- WF to coordinate the application between the different logical parts (clients)
- Published Web Services in SAP WAS 6.20/6.40

The paper gives a good overview about the architecture and some background on the usage of the different components. A walk through for the setup of the SAP NetWeaver Sneak preview system is included as well as an outlook on the next steps in the application like security considerations. Thanks to my friend Lei from Spell GmbH who spend a while on the programming and content aggregation.

The paper can be found on:
https://www.microsoft-sap.com/pdf/BuildingWorkflowEnabledSmartClientApps.pdf

I will upload the code next week as well (you have to install the .NET Framework 3.0 in order to run the samples).

Enjoy the summer,

-Tilo