Programming Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange, Second Edition (DV-MPS Programming)
Depending on the technology you use to develop a Digital Dashboard, the method for deploying the dashboard will differ—for example, locating your dashboard in Outlook Today will demand a deployment that is different from one in which you use Internet Explorer or an Outlook Folder Homepage. Let's take a look at these different scenarios and some best practices for deploying your dashboard.
Outlook Today Digital Dashboard
When you create your dashboard as a replacement for the Outlook Today page, you can force Outlook to start up in your dashboard by telling Outlook to always start in the Outlook Today folder. Outlook supports starting up only in its default folders or in Outlook Today, so unless the Folder Homepage dashboard is associated with a default Outlook folder such as Contacts or Tasks, you cannot force your dashboard to start up in the Folder Homepage.
When customizing Outlook Today, you can choose from a number of options for deploying your solution. Your first option is to distribute your applications as a local or remote DLL. By placing your Web resources in a DLL, you'll gain the benefit of having your page load faster. However, deploying your DLL will be more difficult and redeploying after making changes will be a problem, especially if you use a local DLL. Furthermore, you will need Microsoft Visual Studio to create the resource DLL file.
Your second deployment option is to host your Outlook Today page on a Web server. Doing so makes your dashboard easy to deploy and change, plus you can leverage Active Server Pages. The only issue with Outlook Today and remote Web servers is offline use. Outlook Today does not synchronize offline in the way that a Folder Homepage does. If you need to use your dashboard offline, you can still use a Web server and Outlook Today, but you will need to make the Folder Homepage point to your dashboard so that the Folder Homepage can synchronize the Web information offline. When working with offline Web pages, Outlook will look to the Internet Explorer cache, which doesn't distinguish the Outlook folder associated with the Web pages. Once you get the pages into the Internet Explorer cache, you can use these pages both from the Folder Homepage or your Outlook Today page.
Folder Homepage Digital Dashboard
By making your dashboard a Folder Homepage for a private or public folder, you get the benefit of automatic offline synchronization. However, this benefit comes at a price: you can't force Outlook to start in your dashboard as the default unless the dashboard is associated with a standard Outlook folder. That said, you can use the same deployment techniques for Outlook Today and for Folder Homepages such as a DLL or Web server.