Developing MS Outlook Plugin using .NET

Question

I am currently building 3-tired ASP.NET 3.5 Web application which has workflows built in for manager approvals. Currently there is a dashboard on the homepage of the website where all the pending approvals are displayed in a webpart. I want to build a plugin for MS Outlook so that whenever there is a new request for approval I want that request to show up in MS outlook. Where do I start with this? Do I have to expose my business logic layer through webservices? Can anyone please point me towards some useful material or books?

Answer 1

It's been a while, but I can give you a quick heads up.

Have built a single add-on to Outlook 2007. between 2003 and 2007 you develop the add-ons differently. Since the introduction of the Ribbon 2007.

I used WCF to setup Web Services (a simple API) within my web application. Then, connected to that API from an Outlook application. If I remember correctly, there is a template in visual studio to use for building Office Add-ins.

I just did some google searching and this was nearly 2 years ago. there was very limited info then. Now there should be more.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Hey,

That's a big and complicated topic. This author did a good job explaining it: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/Professional-Outlook-2007-Programming.productCd-0470049944.html

I did get a lot out of that book. But I realized it wasn't going to be an easy task, whichever approach you take.

HTH.

Answer 3

I've done some VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) code in the past, but I think you should check out this video on the Microsoft site.