Developing software for the Microsoft platform isn’t just about .NET and Visual Studio. Developing for and implementing Microsoft’s server products, including Office SharePoint Server (and Office itself), BizTalk Server, PerformancePoint Server and the various components of SQL Server, is a requirement on more and more projects. Whether you’re building a Business Intelligence solution, integrating your legacy mainframe and a business partner’s system, or setting up a corporate document management workflow application, you need to know Microsoft’s server products. For the first time ever at VSLive!, we’ll have a conference that focuses across these products as a single system and, in keeping with our roots, covers the developer features that make them relevant to you and indispensable like never before.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
VS2Useful Evolution: Programming the New Features in SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Leonard Lobel
9:45 a.m.
Get a jump start on the powerful new features in the next version of SQL Server codenamed “Katmai”. In this jam-packed session, we’ll explore SQL Server 2008 and some of its most significant improvements and enhancements with extensive demos. The new table-valued parameters allow you to marshal entire sets of rows across from client to server, and to pass them between stored procedures. Learn about the new hierarchyid and FILESTREAM data types which take the database platform beyond relational data. We’ll also dig into MERGE, INSERT OVER DML, and GROUPING SETS. Attend this session and be ready for the upcoming release of SQL Server 2008.
VS7Top 10 T-SQL Features in SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Vineet Rao
11:15 a.m.
Want to learn about the new T-SQL enhancements in SQL Server 2008? This session will give you an overview with demonstrations on the most interesting T-SQL features in SQL Server 2008. Some of the new T-SQL features that this session will cover are: MERGE, Grouping Sets, Table-Valued Parameters, Date and Time data types.
VS12Essential SharePoint Development, Intermediate
Bill D. Baldasti
2:30 p.m.
In this session,we look at numerous examples of development for both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Examples include document conversion, Web parts, custom search, branding/themes, content importing, user management, custom workflow and more. The focus will be on scenarios that involve writing code rather than SharePoint configuration or administration.
VS17SharePoint 2007 Forms and Workflow, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
4:00 p.m.
Forms drive business processes through workflows. This session presents best practices for connecting list views and InfoPath forms to SharePoint 2007-hosted workflows. Forms are deployed to document libraries, specific content types are configured, and properties are promoted and demoted. Forms are filled out in the client and browser interface including mobile devices. Windows Workflow Foundation logic is created using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2008. Data connections to Excel Services, the Business Data Catalog, and SQL 2008 are also covered.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
VS22Building S+S Based Solutions with Office 2007 -
Integrating Web Services into Your
Office Business Application, Intermediate
Joanna Bichsel
8:30 a.m.
Office 2007 is a natural fit for S+S because it exposes a rich set of services and it provides the presentation layer for displaying the results of this data retrieval into the client applications that end users are most often comfortable with. Using Visual Studio 2008 which contains Visual Studio Tools for Office 3.0 provides rapid development tools which enable developers to create powerful S+S Office Business Applications. In this session, we will build a recruiting solution that harnesses LOB data with the BDC in MOSS, business logic through Excel Services, and ECM from SharePoint all while allowing the end-user to live within a single application.
VS27Excel and Excel Services as a BI Platform, Advanced
Andrew Brust
10:00 a.m.
Since the release of Excel 2000, the ubiquitous spreadsheet application has had important BI capabilities through its support for querying OLAP cubes in PivotTables. With the release of Excel 2007 and Excel Services (a SharePoint-enabled front-end to Excel workbooks), the BI plot thickens, by quite a lot. Excel now has support for the full Analysis Services 2005 feature set, new formula functions for doing OLAP queries outside of PivotTables, a revamped charting engine, and, with Excel Services, the ability to present all of it in a Web-based dashboard hosted in SharePoint. Add .NET development with Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) and you’ve got a high-caliber, programmable BI platform for the desktop, the Web and custom applications. Come to this session and learn how to make the Excel BI platform work for you, and your data.
VS32Intro to PerformancePoint Server Monitoring and Analytics, Intermediate
Andrew Brust
11:30 a.m.
Microsoft’s PerformancePoint Server represents an important milestone for Microsoft’s Business Intelligence strategy. For the first time ever, Microsoft now has a full BI stack, including the base OLAP database platform in Analysis Services, sophisticated analytic capabilities acquired from ProClarity, Reporting Services, Excel and SharePoint integration, and PerformacePoint’s full planning and dashboarding capabilities, all “under one roof.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? But the reality is that this vast array of products—and understanding how to use them together—can create a barrier to adoption and comfort with the technology. Technologists’ relatively low familiarity with BI creates even more friction.
In this session, we’ll learn how to build an advanced dashboard in PerformancePoint, but we’ll also get a quick understanding of OLAP cubes, and see how to combine tools like ProClarity and Excel Services, and their output, into our dashboard. Come learn the headline product, as well as its supporting components.
VS37SQL Server 2008 Reporting and Dashboards, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
2:45 p.m.
Learn about advanced techniques for building reports with SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and the Visual Studio-based Report Designer. Topics include rich formatting with the new Tablix control, new chart options from the Dundas library, rendering as Word or Excel using the SoftArtisan technology, defining expressions, parameterizing reports (data driven, multi-valued, and hierarchical), supporting multiple data sources (including relational, multidimensional, and XML), and making reports interactive. You will see how to manage and distribute reports in Report Manager and SharePoint 2007 integration including Performance Point 2007. There will be walkthroughs of sample reports and tips and tricks for using the Report Definition Language (RDL) and Report Builder.
VS42Service Development and Integration with BizTalk, Intermediate 
Kent Brown
4:15 p.m.
When you think of integration, you may think of clunky old messaging formats (flatfile, EDI, HIPAA, SWIFT, FIX, etc.). Sure BizTalk does all that and it's important stuff. But BizTalk also plays very well in the Service-Oriented space. With the WCF Adapters in R2, BizTalk is perfectly suited to build and host your course-grained, business-focused services and broker, or "Orchestrate", to your fine-grained services built in WCF or ASMX. In this session, you will learn the capabilities, the How-To, and the Best Practices of using BizTalk to consume and expose Web services.
