Office Business Applications
Encyclopedia
Office Business Applications (OBA) are an emerging class of application that helps businesses unlock the value of their Line of Business
(LOB) systems and turn document-based processes into real applications.
OBAs leverage the power of the Office Business Platform, that is, the clients, servers, services, and tools that comprise the 2007 Microsoft Office system to solve business problems.
An Office Business Application (OBA) is a composite application
that uses applications within the Microsoft Office System (such as Outlook, Word, or Excel) as the "front end" for a Line of Business (LOB) application.
People typically perform significant additional work outside of the formal processes of a Line of Business (LOB) system as they collaborate with other people via phone and email
, obtain information from multiple sources in the form of documents and spreadsheets, and switch between online and offline modes for meetings and business trips.
OBAs help simplify this interaction by fitting within the informal processes that information workers actually follow. Applications and documents can be extended to add enterprise-specific features, and LOB systems can be seamlessly integrated with the Microsoft Office system to make the LOB system much more accessible.
In more detail, OBA's employ a composite application architecture, and link the 2007 Microsoft Office System applications running on the desktop to custom and off-the-shelf Line of Business (LOB) applications running on remote servers.
Typically this link happens via web services. For example, rather than using Outlook only for email and calendaring, an OBA might allow Outlook to also provide a view into an inventory system, a customer service system, or an HR system.
Why OBA? An OBA can mean easier-to-use applications and faster adoption of enterprise systems, because end users get the familiar Office-based experience, while connecting to sometimes-unfriendly information systems or applications in the enterprise.
Often the LOB services can be orchestrated by an Enterprise Service Bus such as Microsoft Biztalk Server.
Quoting from the OBA Developer website
OBAs can be developed to meet a multitude of customer needs. For example, a company may want to:
- Extend its LOB application to more users.
- Implement an application that consolidates multiple user interfaces into a 2007 Office system document or SharePoint Server Web page.
- Build a workflow application that helps users to regain control of critical documents.
Companies can buy OBA's from their application vendors, or they can build their own OBAs.
ISVs and integrators can build applications consistent to the OBA paradigm, and leverage the existing IT investments of their customers with the goal of delivering more end user productivity.
Microsoft has also developed an OBA application, in cooperation with SAP, that is called Duet.
Line of Business
Line of business is a general term which often refers to a set of one or more highly related products which service a particular customer transaction or business need....
(LOB) systems and turn document-based processes into real applications.
OBAs leverage the power of the Office Business Platform, that is, the clients, servers, services, and tools that comprise the 2007 Microsoft Office system to solve business problems.
An Office Business Application (OBA) is a composite application
Composite application
In computing, the term composite application expresses a perspective of software engineering that defines an application built by combining multiple existing functions into a new application. The technical concept can be compared to mashups...
that uses applications within the Microsoft Office System (such as Outlook, Word, or Excel) as the "front end" for a Line of Business (LOB) application.
People typically perform significant additional work outside of the formal processes of a Line of Business (LOB) system as they collaborate with other people via phone and email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, obtain information from multiple sources in the form of documents and spreadsheets, and switch between online and offline modes for meetings and business trips.
OBAs help simplify this interaction by fitting within the informal processes that information workers actually follow. Applications and documents can be extended to add enterprise-specific features, and LOB systems can be seamlessly integrated with the Microsoft Office system to make the LOB system much more accessible.
In more detail, OBA's employ a composite application architecture, and link the 2007 Microsoft Office System applications running on the desktop to custom and off-the-shelf Line of Business (LOB) applications running on remote servers.
Typically this link happens via web services. For example, rather than using Outlook only for email and calendaring, an OBA might allow Outlook to also provide a view into an inventory system, a customer service system, or an HR system.
Why OBA? An OBA can mean easier-to-use applications and faster adoption of enterprise systems, because end users get the familiar Office-based experience, while connecting to sometimes-unfriendly information systems or applications in the enterprise.
Often the LOB services can be orchestrated by an Enterprise Service Bus such as Microsoft Biztalk Server.
Quoting from the OBA Developer website
OBAs connect Line of Business (LOB) systems with the people that use them through the familiar user interface of Microsoft Office. OBAs enable businesses to extend the Microsoft Office clients and servers into business processes running in LOB applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM). This enables enterprises to create new value from existing IT investments by combining them in innovative ways.
OBAs can be developed to meet a multitude of customer needs. For example, a company may want to:
- Extend its LOB application to more users.
- Implement an application that consolidates multiple user interfaces into a 2007 Office system document or SharePoint Server Web page.
- Build a workflow application that helps users to regain control of critical documents.
Companies can buy OBA's from their application vendors, or they can build their own OBAs.
ISVs and integrators can build applications consistent to the OBA paradigm, and leverage the existing IT investments of their customers with the goal of delivering more end user productivity.
Microsoft has also developed an OBA application, in cooperation with SAP, that is called Duet.
Examples of OBAs
- Duet - connects Microsoft Outlook and SAP apps
- OBA Central solutions catalog - See an extensive list of OBA solutions available on the market
- Xpertdoc Studio - Automates the production of reports and documents
- Invenias - Executive Search and Recruitment Software integrated into Microsoft Outlook
See also
- OBA Central
- Composite applicationComposite applicationIn computing, the term composite application expresses a perspective of software engineering that defines an application built by combining multiple existing functions into a new application. The technical concept can be compared to mashups...
- Service-oriented architectureService-oriented architectureIn software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
- Web 2.0Web 2.0The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
- OBA on Microsoft.com