Office Enterprise 2007 The Outlook Platform Make

Outlook is a feature rich Personal Information Manager (PIM) and messaging application used by millions of users worldwide. While Outlook comes loaded with lots of features, many users have their own wish list containing features that they would love to see in Outlook. I’m a Program Manager for extensibility on the Outlook product team. That’s just a fancy way of saying that I spend my time helping developers program Outlook to work according to their vision of the perfect Outlook solution. My purpose in writing this post is to give you an overview of Outlook extensibility,Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, and to provide both end users and developers with some great Web resources for extending Outlook. First off, if you’re an end user looking for a solution that meets your unique requirements, you should visit Office Marketplace. Many of the listings on Office Marketplace are add-ins, a technical term for an additional component that adds new functionality to Outlook. For example, an add-in can enforce mail rules by disallowing Reply All to a large distribution list or provide special item types for customer relationship management (CRM). Although not all Outlook add-ins are listed on Office Marketplace, there are hundreds of add-ins available publicly plus thousands that have been developed internally for business use. To get an idea of the add-in landscape, just search for “Outlook Add-ins” in your favorite search engine. For those of you who actually write code for a hobby or professionally, I have some great news for you: Outlook 2007 is the most programmable version of Outlook ever! If you’ve ever done any coding you’ll know that developers always learn by example. This means that you want great code samples - so that you can use the samples to get started - and then concentrate on the fun stuff where your creativity shines! So we’ve worked hard to provide you with comprehensive documentation and code samples to jumpstart your efforts. Take a look at the following: Resource Description Outlook 2007 Resource CenterAll you ever wanted to know about all aspects of Outlook 2007 Development. Outlook 2007 Developer ReferenceContains conceptual and reference topics for all objects and members in the Outlook 2007 object model. Code samples are Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Outlook 2007 Primary Interop Assembly ReferenceContains conceptual and reference topics for all classes and members in the Outlook 2007 Primary Interop Assembly. Code samples are Visual Basic .NET and C#. Outlook 2007 Auxiliary ReferenceContains conceptual and reference topics for Outlook 2007 auxiliary APIs for advanced developers. Code samples are C++.For those coders who like the feel and heft of a book,Windows 7 Activation, here’s a shameless plug for a Microsoft Press book that I co-authored with my fellow Program Manager, Ryan Gregg: Programming Applications for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 The following blogs also provide timely information about Outlook programmability: Ryan's Look at Outlook Programmability SGriffin's [MSFT] WebLog The CDOS and CDONTS of Messaging Development Wes’ Puzzling Blog Wiz/dumb Messaging development spouts and findingsWith the forthcoming release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, you will be able to develop Outlook add-ins using Visual Studio Tools for Office which offers built-in Ribbon and Outlook Form Region designers. These designers make you productive without all the pain of writing code from scratch. Check out these resources: An Overview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 White Paper Visual Studio 2008 Seminar Coming to a City Near You If you’re an end user,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, may you find the Outlook add-in of your dreams. For those developers in the audience,Office 2007 Serial, unleash your creativity and happy coding,Office Enterprise 2007! Randy Byrne
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