How to: Create an Application or Workspace

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You can easily create an application or workspace for Microsoft Office Live Small Business using the existing applications or additional templates provided with your Office Live Small Business subscription. You can:

  • Add a workspace using an Office Live Small Business template.
  • Add an application or workspace by building on an existing application or workspace.

In addition, with some limitations, you can create a new application or workspace without starting with an Office Live Small Business template. You can:

  • Add an application or workspace from a Windows SharePoint Services template (a .stp file).
  • Add an application or workspace from your Web pages.

Add a workspace using an Office Live Small Business template

The Business Applications area of Office Live Small Business includes four workspaces: Customer, Basic Meeting, Team, and Wiki. You can add the following workspaces to Business Applications by using templates provided with your subscription:

Workspace Description
Blank Meeting Workspace Customize by adding lists, libraries, and features.
Blank Workspace Customize by adding lists, libraries, and features.
Blog Enable your customers to post ideas, observations, and expertise in blog entries that their site visitors can comment on.
Decision Meeting Workspace Includes lists for creating tasks, storing documents, and recording decisions.
Document Workspace Includes a document library, a tasks list, and a links list.
Social Meeting Workspace Includes lists for tracking attendees, providing directions, and storing pictures from an event.
To upload a workspace template
  1. On the left navigation bar, click Business Applications.
  2. In the Common Tasks list, click Manage applications and workspaces.
  3. On the actions bar, click Create new application.
  4. On the next page, click Upload.
  5. In the Upload Template dialog box, click Browse, find the SharePoint template(.stp) file on your computer, and then click Open.
  6. Click OK.

Add an application or workspace by building on an existing application or workspace

The easiest way to create a custom application or workspace is to edit an existing Office Live Small Business application or workspace. You can do this by first copying the application or workspace and then editing it, or you can first edit the application and then copy it.

You can edit Office Live Small Business applications and workspaces by using the tools provided with Office Live Small Business, or by using a Web authoring tool, such as SharePoint Designer 2007. For more information, see How to: Customize an application with SharePoint Designer2007 and About Customizing with SharePoint Designer 2007.

To create a copy of an application or workspace
  1. On the left navigation bar, click Business Applications.
  2. In the Common Tasks list, click Manage applications and workspaces.
  3. On the actions bar, click Create new application.
  4. In the Select a category list, select the template that you want to use to create the new application or workspace.
  5. In the Select a template list, click the template for the application that you want to create.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Follow the instructions on the screen to create the application.

Add an application or workspace from a SharePoint template

We recommend that you start with an Office Live Small Business application or workspace when creating a custom one. If you choose to create your new application or workspace using Windows SharePoint Services technology, you should be aware of some limitations.

In Windows SharePoint Services you can define a site by using a site definition or a template. Site definitions consist of multiple files on a front-end Web server that contain XML tags that define a template for a site. Templates are created through the user interface or through the object model, and are stored in the database. Site definitions and the object model are not accessible to Office Live Small Business developers.

Office Live Small Business uses Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 technology. The following SharePoint templates are not supported by Office Live Small Business:

  • SharePoint templates created for the beta version of Microsoft Office Live.
  • SharePoint templates created using Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0.

Additionally, sites that you create and save as a template by using the Windows SharePoint Services interface may encounter problems when uploaded to Office Live Small Business, because these sites do not support Office Live Small Business navigation features.

Server-side programs that implement the Windows SharePoint Services object model do not work with Office Live Small Business. However, you can use Windows SharePoint Services Web services and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) methods to work with them remotely. For more information, see the following:

Add an application or workspace from your Web pages

We recommend that you start with an Office Live Small Business application or workspace when creating a custom one. However, you can upload your Web pages to Office Live Small Business. For information about how to upload your Web pages, see Upload your Web pages. To learn more about using your Web pages in Office Live Small Business, see Best practices for using your own Web site in Office Live Small Business.

Office Live Small Business developers are not able to access server-side code. Server-side code cannot be interpreted when the page opens on an Office Live Small Business site. You can, however, use client-side scripting with Office Live Small Business applications. When applications with client-side scripting run in the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP, users receive two warnings before the item is displayed.