Overview: The Project Initiation Sample

You can simplify project management using Microsoft® Office InfoPath™ 2003, the new information gathering and management program in the Microsoft Office System. InfoPath provides one of the easiest ways to create forms that can take advantage of your existing project data stores. This documentation describes a project management solution that demonstrates how InfoPath can be integrated with Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 to facilitate the project initiation process.

The Project Initiation sample shows how you can use Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET managed code to create an assembly that is exposed as a Component Object Model (COM) object that can be called from an InfoPath form. The assembly object in the Project Initiation sample relies on the Project Data Service (PDS) to gather Enterprise Project Management (EPM) information and to create the project directly from the form.

The built-in integration of InfoPath with Microsoft Windows® SharePoint™ Services provides a quick and easy way for users of Microsoft Office Project to collaborate using Windows SharePoint Services form libraries. Publishing the Project Initiation form to a form library on a Windows SharePoint Services Web site gives project managers and executives the ability to organize project-related forms, readily access that information, and enable efficient collaboration.

In short, this sample demonstrates how integration with InfoPath simplifies and brings more visibility, control, and participation to EPM.

Download   Download the Project Initiation sample from the Microsoft Office Project 2003 SDK (pj11SDK2003.exe) available from the Microsoft Download Center. The file contains all of the topics and source code samples for the Microsoft Office Project 2003 Software Development Kit, including the Project Initiation sample files.