What's New for Providers

Applies to: Office 2007 | Outlook 2010 | SharePoint Server 2010

This topic presents a comparison of the features available in Microsoft Outlook Social Connector (OSC) 1.1 and OSC 1.0. It also describes interface members and XML elements that have been added, changed, or deprecated.

Providers should consider taking advantage of the on-demand synchronization features added to OSC 1.1. Providers written to the OSC 1.1 specification must ensure that the OSC 1.1 core engine is installed. Providers written to the OSC 1.0 specification will continue to run with the OSC 1.1 core engine, with changes to how the ISocialSession::GetActivities method and the dynamicActivitiesLookup element are supported in OSC 1.1. For more information, see the topic for the ISocialSession::GetActivities method.

The following table shows the availability of various features in OSC 1.1 and OSC 1.0.

Feature

OSC 1.1

OSC 1.0

Basic authentication

Yes

Yes

Forms-based authentication

Yes

Yes

Cached authentication

Yes

Yes

Cached sync for friends to contacts folder on default store

Yes

Yes

Cached activities sync for friends to hidden Newsfeed folder

Yes

Yes

On-demand sync (picture, name, title) for friends and non-friends on network

Yes

No

On-demand activities sync for friends and non-friends on network

Yes

No

Follow on network

Yes

Yes

Do not follow on network

Yes

Yes

Click network badge to visit user profile page

Yes

Yes

Privacy settings (for example, to display profile and activities of non-friends)

Yes

No

Hashed email addresses passed to provider

Yes

No

Changes from the Previous Version of OSC Provider Extensibility

The following table shows the members that have been added or deprecated from the corresponding interface.

Interface and member

Comment

ISocialSession::GetActivities

Deprecated in OSC 1.1.

ISocialSession2

Interface added in OSC 1.1.

ISocialSession2::FollowPersonEx

Added in OSC 1.1.

ISocialSession2::GetActivitiesEx

Added in OSC 1.1.

ISocialSession2::GetPeopleDetails

Added in OSC 1.1.

ISocialSession2::LogonCached

Added in OSC 1.1.

 

The following table shows the schema elements that have changed.

Schema element

Comment

capabilities

Added in OSC 1.1: dynamicActivitiesLookupEx, dynamicContactsLookup, useLogonCached, hideRememberMyPassword, createAccountUrl, forgotPasswordUrl, showOnDemandActivitiesWhenMinimized, showOnDemandContactsWhenMinimized, and hashFunction elements.

dynamicActivitiesLookup is deprecated in OSC 1.1.

hashedAddresses

Added in OSC 1.1.

templatevariableType

Changed type of value element from xs:anyURI to xs:string.

xmlns

Changed xmlns attribute for OSC 1.1.

See Also

Concepts

XML for Capabilities

Other Resources

Getting Started with Developing an Outlook Social Connector Provider