Tools Back Office as .NET Client

The Office XP Web Services Toolkit makes it easier for developers to access XML Web Services using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The new toolkit helps ensure that applications built on top of VBA-enabled products, such as Word and Excel, can exchange data with Web services, which Microsoft promotes as a way to integrate applications and deliver services over the Internet.

Toolkit Allows Office to Use Web Services

The toolkit includes the following:

• The Web Service References Tool, an add-in to the VBA environment that allows developers to locate and use Web services on the Internet.
• A set of documentation and sample code showing how to use the toolkit from Access, Excel, and Outlook.

The toolkit also includes files that developers must distribute with their applications for the Web references to work correctly.

VBA Add-In Simplifies Development

Using the Web Service References Tool will be familiar to developers who are currently using COM objects from within VBA. In the same way that they used the “References” dialog box to locate, import, and use COM objects, developers can use the references tool to locate Web services, import references to the services into their VBA project files, and write VBA code that uses the services. Once a reference to a Web service has been imported, developers can treat it as they would any other VBA object, including using the developer productivity features of VBA, such as the Object Browser or Intellisense statement completion. Developers can locate a Web service on the Internet either by entering the URL for the service in the reference tool or by browsing one of the public Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration (UDDI) Web service directories operated by Microsoft, IBM, and other vendors.