Walkthrough: Creating a Digital Dashboard using Web Parts

Article
06/14/2014

This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

A Digital Dashboard is a customized solution that delivers personal, team, and corporate information directly to a user's desktop. A Digital Dashboard can be as simple as a single Web page that runs inside the Microsoft® Outlook® messaging and collaboration client displaying your daily calendar and favorite links or as complex as a full-featured knowledge-management solution that joins information from enterprise and external sources. This document walks you through building your first dashboard.

Introduction

Using Microsoft® Office XP Developer, you can quickly build and deploy customized Digital Dashboard solutions. A Digital Dashboard is an Active Server Page (ASP) that references one or more Web Parts. Each Web Part is a self-contained module of Extensible Markup Language (XML), HTML, or script (Microsoft® JScript® or Microsoft® Visual Basic® Scripting Edition (VBScript)) and is designed to retrieve and render the information you want to include in the dashboard. When the user loads the dashboard, the dashboard retrieves the Web Parts that it is configured to display.

The basic process for developing a Digital Dashboard using Office Developer is as follows:

**Preparing the Exchange Server **To follow along with this walkthrough and create your first Digital Dashboard, you must have access to a Microsoft® Exchange 2000 server.
Creating the Digital Dashboard Project Add Web Parts. After you create a dashboard, you can tailor its functionality by adding Web Parts. Web Parts determine the content of a Digital Dashboard and can display any type of information or Web format that you would like to implement. A catalog of Web Parts is provided with Office Developer. You can implement these as is or modify them to meet your requirements. In addition, you can create your own Web Parts.
Testing your dashboard After creating your dashboard and adding Web Parts, you can test your dashboard by viewing it in a browser.

By completing this walkthrough, you can create a Digital Dashboard that uses Web Parts and runs on an Exchange Server.

Because this walkthrough is designed to highlight how to create a simple dashboard project, not a complicated user interface, it is not a real-world Digital Dashboard.

Preparing the Exchange Server

To follow along with this walkthrough, you must have Office XP Developer, access to an Exchange 2000 server, and the appropriate permissions on the server. For more information about preparing Exchange for a Digital Dashboard, see the documentation in the Exchange SDK download, available from the Microsoft® Developer Network (MSDN®) Exchange Server Developer Center at http://msdn.microsoft.com/exchange/.

Creating a Digital Dashboard requires the following components:

Server: Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Server as the back-end for the application.
Development tool: Office Developer as the tool for creating the dashboard. This tool can reside on either a client computer with access to the server or the server itself.

Creating the Digital Dashboard Project

The following process outlines the steps required to create a new dashboard project and the HTML Web Parts it contains.

To create a dashboard

From the Start menu, select Programs, select Microsoft Office XP Developer, and then select Microsoft Development Environment.
From the File menu, select New, and then select Project.
The New Project dialog box is displayed. Select Office Developer Projects. Under Templates: three project icons are displayed, Exchange Workflow Project, SQL Server Workflow Project, and Dashboard Project.
Select the Dashboard Project icon.
In the Location box, do one of the following:
- Type the URL to the Exchange 2000 Server public folder location where you want to create your application. Typically, this URL will be in the form http://ServerName/Public.
  
  –or–
- Click the Browse button to specify a folder location by using the Project Location dialog box.
In the Folder Name dialog box, type the name for the folder that will contain your application. This will be part of the URL used to open your application. For example, if you enter MyApplication, the URL to your application will look like http://MyServer/Public/MyApplication.
Click OK.

Adding Web Parts

A Web Part is a reusable component that can contain any kind of Web-based information.

To add Web Parts to a dashboard project, use the Add New Item command. Using this command, you can add a JScript, VBScript, XML, or HTML Web Part to the dashboard project.

Use the Add Existing Item command to add an existing file to the dashboard. If the item you add is already a Web Part, its property values are preserved and affect the appearance and behavior of the dashboard. If the added file is not a Web Part, it is copied into the dashboard project. When you double-click the imported file, Office Developer starts the registered editor for the file.

To add a new Web Part to a dashboard

In the Solution Explorer, select the dashboard project.
Right-click the dashboard project name, and, from the shortcut menu, select Add, and then select New Item.
Select a part type (for example, HTML), and click Open.

To add an existing Web Part to a dashboard

In the Solution Explorer, select the dashboard project.
Right-click the dashboard project name, and, from the shortcut menu, select Add, and then select Existing Item.
Select the Web Part that you want to add, and click OK.

Previewing and Testing your Dashboard

After creating your dashboard and adding Web Parts, you can preview and test your dashboard by viewing it in a browser.

To preview and test a Digital Dashboard

In the Solution Explorer, select the dashboard project.
Right-click the dashboard project name, and select View in Browser from the shortcut menu.