About sdOffice 2.0
sdOffice Discontinued as of 12/31/2017
sdOffice is no longer being developed. The product is being
discontinued effective 12/31/2017. Existing customers are welcome to continue
using it "as is", but there will be no new sales, nor any patches, and any
license resets will be charged a non-supported product fee.
We encourage users to migrate their processes to other techniques.
Automate Office from Anywhere
sdOffice® 2.0 is an application that
provides platform-independent and language-independent control over
Microsoft Office® applications such as Excel, Word, and Outlook.
Through a concise series of commands and parameters, issued by any
program locally or over a network, you can automate Office applications
and fully integrate them with an application.
Through this technology, application programmers in languages such as
BBx, ProvideX, Cobol, Perl, Java, and C can add sophisticated Office
capabilities to their applications, performing such functions as
spreadsheet loading and formatting, letter writing, mail merging,
appointment scheduling, emailing, and contact database synchronizing.
sdOffice 2.0 is a re-written and re-engineered product which Version 1.0 users
will be impressed with. Read on for an overview of its capabilities, or
download the manual for
complete details.
Multi-Tier Architecture
sdOffice 2.0 is controlled centrally by a Network Server. Windows clients,
called Office Clients, are configured to connect to the Network Server and
listen for jobs. Application Clients, under the control of your application
programs, connect to the Network Server and request that a job be run on a
particular Office Client, identified by a hostname, IP address, user name, or Windows
system name. The job is then routed to the appropriate Office Client.
The Network Server is typically run on the same system as your application,
but this is not a requirement. It is possible, for example, to install the Network Server
on a Windows 2003 server to support an application running on one or more Unix servers.
Licensing is managed by the Network Server, so a single license is all that is required
for any number of users. The license specifies the number of concurrent jobs can be
sent through sdOffice at one time. This provides simple management of sdOffice, and
no license limit on the number of Office Clients that can be installed and connected.
Software-control for Seamless Operation
Most users today use "pull" technology, such as ODBC coupled
with complicated VBA macros, to perform automated operations such
as these. With sdOffice, such operations can be performed under
program control from a host application using live data.
sdOffice jobs can be executed visually on a user's desktop, or can be
executed silently on any connected workstation. Jobs can be combined
in order to create, save, and distribute documents and files. Files can be
distributed securely from an application server to user workstations.
sdOffice processing can be bi-directional. Not only can you create or update Excel workbooks, or
Word documents, or Outlook contacts, for example, but you can also read their contents and use the
data in your application programs.
Platform- and Language-Independent
sdOffice 2.0 supports any language that can interface with a TCP/IP
socket. On Unix, interfaces have been written even
in languages that don't have native socket support by using a
handle to a Perl-based pipe. Pre-written command file interfaces
are provided for BBx, ProvideX, Perl, and a native Windows .exe.
The interface is so clean and simple you can even perform the
automation task manually using telnet!
Security
sdOffice provides a three-level security model to match your security needs. If all
access is local network based, and the information contained in your jobs is non-sensitive,
you can turn off security or limit it to specific IP address ranges. A second level requires
that Office Client's authenticate themselves before the Network Server allows a connection.
This is useful if there is a potential for access from outside your network. A third level,
available on server machines with OpenSSL support, adds SSL encryption to an authenticated
Office Client connection.
Key Features
sdOffice Network Server
- Easy installation on Windows 2000/XP/2003, Linux, and Unix systems.
- Centralized licensing based on concurrent jobs
- Complete documentation and many sample job files
- Application client tools for running jobs independent of programming language
- BBx and ProvideX CALL interfaces
- Print Preview shell to route Unix/Linux server-based print streams to user desktops
- Automated file distibution to Office Client workstations
|
Excel automation for workbook/worksheet work
- Worksheet data read and write
- Cell formatting, including color and font management
- Embedded charts driven by worksheet data
- Excel function support and macro support
- Worksheet sorting and subtotaling
- Workbook management and printing
- Worksheet and Workbook protection
- Macro support
|
Word automation for document management
- Text writing, reading, and formatting
- Paragraph formatting for margins, indents, etc.
- Tables
- Bullet- and number-style lists
- Images, both in-line and absolute
- Mailmerge tag support, and text search/replace
- Document management and printing
- Macro support
|
Outlook automation
- Email function supporting attachments
- Contact database read/write
- Appointment database read/write
- Tasks database read/write
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Database automation via ADO
- Connection via ADO to nearly any database
- Read and write via SQL commands
- Navigate record sets
- Table and column structure inquiries
|
Email automation via MAPI, POP, and SMTP
- Send email using a Microsoft Mail profile
- Send and Receive email via SMTP and POP clients
- To:, Cc:, and Bcc: via direct addressing or address book names
- Attachment support - send documents created by other automations!
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Miscellaneous Features
- Object extensibility with VBScript
- File transfer and Special Folder support
- Print Preview
- Popup desktop notifications
- Job management supporting multiple jobs per connection stream
- Job logging
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