Office Front End for Dynamics AX, CRM

Four free programs from Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) allow users to access data and functions in Dynamics AX 3.0 and Dynamics CRM 3.0 from Office applications. The programs—called Dynamics Snap—better position Office as a platform for custom application development and could give workers access to business information from within the familiar Office interface. The Snap programs and source code are freely available, which could help jump-start partner development of additional applications. However, the programs are unsupported, and partners who build on them should be aware that Microsoft’s plans for these products could change.

Pushing Office as Client

Dynamics Snap supports two important Microsoft business objectives. First, the project helps establish Visual Studio, the .NET Framework, and Office as a platform for custom business application development. The Snap programs are .NET-based solutions written in the C# language using the Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office (VSTO), an edition of Visual Studio that enables developers to use the .NET Framework and .NET languages to build extensions to Word, Excel, InfoPath, and Outlook.