Office Live Small Business - General Topics

Announcements

• Office Live Small Business - Web Site Forum

  JohnChMSFTFriday, March 07, 2008 9:42 PM

  Visit the Microsoft Office Live Small Business - Web Site Forum to learn about Web Site Designer. Plus, discussions on key technology: HTML, DHTML, CSS, XSLT, JavaScript, Silverlight, and more.

• FAQs, Tips, and Links - Start here!

  JohnChMSFTFriday, March 07, 2008 9:45 PM

  If you haven’t already done so, please join the Microsoft Office Live Small Business Community for Designers & Developers at dev.officelive.com. Not only will you gain access to training and technical resources, but you can get a free Developer Account!

  This forum is designed to help support developers and designers who are writing applications that work with Microsoft Office Live Small Business. Please read the below Q&A's before posting questions to the forum. It may help save you some time, and also helps us focus in on the main purpose of this forum, helping developers.

  Frequently Asked Questions

  Q. I need help with Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, Excel, Access, Word, InfoPath, PowerPoint, VBA, etc. etc. Can you help me?

  This forum is for developers working on solutions for Microsoft Office Live subscriptions, either Basics, Essentials or Premium. If your question pertains to how Office Live interacts with any of the Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007 apps, yes, please post the question here.

  If your question does *not* have to do with Office Live, please do not post the question here. There are newsgroups for Microsoft Office suites. Please post your questions there, as this will be the fastest way for you to get help for your issue.

  Q. I am having a problem with my Office Live subscription. Can you help me troubleshoot this problem?

  A. The fastest way to get support with your subscription is to contact the Office Live support team. They have tools that allow them to see the properties of your subscription and determine if something is wrong with it. So, if you are having problems seeing your website, getting your email, billing, etc. etc. please work with support.

  Q. I am trying to use the 3rd Party Design tools feature to manage my web site on Windows Vista, but the web folder doesn't work. Is there a fix for this issue?

  A. There are a couple problems you may be running into:

  1. You may be hitting one of several known issues with Vista and Office 2007. There is a series of patches that has been bundled together for Office Live Workspaces to address these issues. This thread contains a work around, plus a link to the patch with more explanation. Here's a direct link to the installer. NOTE: This has not yet been verified to solve the problem, so we cannot guarantee the web folder will start working. However, we don't want to keep you waiting if there is a possible solution.

  2. You may have cached Windows Live ID credentials in your Windows OS, and the Web Folder is attempting to log you in with the wrong credentials and thus fails. This thread has steps for clearing those out.

  Q. I'm not a developer, but I want to learn more about the cool stuff you can do on Office Live. Is there a good resource I should start with?

  A. Yes! The Microsoft Office Live Community is designed to help folks who are not necessarily highly technical, but who want to learn what can be done in Office Live and see what others have done. There is a wealth of information on customizing your web site, business applications, working with your email accounts and much more. We highly recommend checking out these community bulletin boards, even for our developers to get more ideas of what is possible.

  Q. I can't log into my Business Applications using SharePoint Designer 2007. It says I have the wrong version.

  A. This is usually caused by having multiple Office Live subscriptions and accounts. Sometimes Windows will cache those credentials and SharePoint Designer will attempt to use them without offering you the chance to change accounts. See this discussion for additional details and a solution to the problem.

  Q. Can I write a Windows App that talks to the Office Live Business Applications?

  A. Yes! Using the Windows Live ID Client SDK, you can authenticate against the Live ID authority, determine which subscription(s) the user has access to and then start interacting with the Business Applications associated with that account. This could range from adding/updating/retrieving contacts, reviewing project milestones & tasks, or working with files stored in a document library. It's up to you and your imagination.

  Q. Linked 'external' javascript files are not working as I expected. Are there known issues and workarounds?

  A. There are two known issues with using javascript in Office Live when you use the SRC attribute of the <SCRIPT> tag to link to an 'external' javascript file.

  1. JS files are cached for improved performance - Our platform caches JS files so that we can serve them up faster to your customers' browser. The downside of this is that during the development/test process, your changes are delayed. There are a few simple work-arounds. See this thread for more information.

  2. If you use an external JS file inside of the web site's HTML module, it may lock up or crash IE. This is a known issue in IE, which you may work around using the "defer" attribute of the <SCRIPT> tag. For more information, see this thread.

  Helpful links

  • Microsoft office Live Small Business Designer & Developer Community – portal with training content and resources for Web designers and developers
  • Microsoft Office Live
  • Developer Guide in the MSDN Library
  • MSDN Developer Center - portal of developer resources, videos, blogs, etc.
  • Community discussion boards - these are generally for Office Live end-user questions.
  • Getting started
  • Customer gallery - show off your Office Live site and ask for peer feedback
  • Web Site Design Tips
  • Business Applications - customizing and using the Business Applications and Workspaces
  • Suggestions
  • E-mail
  • Other Questions
  • Blogs
  • Office Live team blog
  • SharePoint Products and Technologies Blog
  • SharePoint Designer team blog
  • Chris Beiter - Office Live program manager

• Microsoft Office Live Small Business—Business Applications Forum

  JohnChMSFTFriday, March 07, 2008 9:44 PM
  Visit the Microsoft Office Live Small Business—Business Applications Forum for tips on effectively using Business Applications: how to configure lists, views, workflow, and web parts; using SharePoint and Contact Manager; creating custom applications with SharePoint Designer; and more.