Microsoft Office 2000 Web Components
White Paper
Published: October
1998
For the latest information, please
see http://www.microsoft.com/office/
Business people are increasingly turning
to intranets and the Internet to share information with one another and with
customers. In the early days of the Internet, only highly technical Web masters
understood how to create and publish Web pages. Other users were limited to
reading what Web masters published. This is changing, as products such as the
MicrosoftÒ FrontPageÒ Web site creation and management tool make it possible for
increasing numbers of people to create and share documents on the Web.
Microsoft Office 2000 takes this trend a
step forward. Because Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, and
the PowerPointÒ presentation graphics program support HTML as a native file format,
all Office 2000 documents are Web-ready by default. And because Web server
support is fully integrated into the Office 2000 File Save and File Open dialog
boxes, publishing an Office 2000 document to a Web server is as easy as saving
a file on your own computer’s hard disk.
But publishing a spreadsheet or database
document to the Web is only half the story. The other half is enabling other
people to interact with the published document and gain information specific to
the viewer—not just the publisher. For example, if you create a spreadsheet to
analyze a product’s profitability given various input costs, a user’s ability
to enter new values and recalculate the results is a key factor in the
document’s value. Likewise, if you create Excel PivotTableÒ dynamic
views or Access forms, reports, or queries, other users must be able to sort,
filter, pivot, or enter new values themselves.
How does this interaction translate to
the Web? Web browsers can’t sort, filter, or recalculate totals on Web pages.
So how do Microsoft Access and Excel users share their documents on the corporate
intranet and still preserve the interactivity that adds so much value to the
information?
By using Microsoft Office Web Components.
The Office Web Components are a
collection of COM controls for publishing spreadsheets, charts, and databases
to the Web. They take full advantage of the rich interactivity provided by
MicrosoftÒ Internet Explorer. When you use Internet Explorer to browse a Web
page that contains an Office Web Component, you interact with the page right in
your browser—you can sort, filter, enter values for formula calculations,
expand and collapse details, pivot, and so on. The COM controls provide the
interactivity. The Web Components are fully programmable, enabling Office
Solution Providers to build rich, interactive, Web-based solutions. The
Microsoft Office Web Components include a spreadsheet, a PivotTable dynamic
view, a data source, and a chart.
Spreadsheet
The spreadsheet component provides a
recalculation engine, a full-function library, and a simple spreadsheet UI in
Web pages. Calculations can refer to spreadsheet cells or to any control on the
page or URL via the Microsoft Internet Explorer document object model. Office
2000 users create Web pages with spreadsheet components by saving Excel
workbooks as Web pages and by selecting the option to publish the page
interactively.
PivotTable
The PivotTable dynamic views component
enables users to analyze information by sorting, grouping, filtering,
outlining, and pivoting. The data can come from a spreadsheet range, from a
relational database (such as Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL ServerÔ
database), or from any data source that supports multidimensional OLEDB (such
as Microsoft Decision Support Server). When an Excel user saves a PivotTable or
QueryTable dynamic view as an interactive Web page, the page contains a
PivotTable component. Web pages with PivotTable components can also be designed
directly in the Access Data Access Pages designer.
Data Source
The data source component is the reporting
engine behind Data Access Pages and the PivotTable component. It manages
communication with back-end database servers and determines which database
records can be displayed on the page. For example, if a Data Access Page
displays customers and orders, the data source component retrieves the order
records for the customer being displayed and manages the sorting, filtering,
and updating of those records in response to user actions. It relies on
Microsoft Active Data Objects (ADO) for plumbing, and like all the Office Web
Components, it is fully programmable.
Chart
The chart component graphically displays
information from the spreadsheet, from the PivotTable dynamic views, or from
the data source component. Because it is bound directly to other controls on
the page, it updates instantly in response to user interactions with the other
components. For example, you can chart a PivotTable view that displays sales by
region. Then, in the browser, you can pivot to display sales by product, and
the chart will update automatically without round-tripping to the Web server.
When an Excel user saves a workbook containing a chart as an interactive Web
page, the page contains a chart component. Office Web Component charts can also
be created and edited directly in the Access Data Access Pages designer.
The Office Web Components require
Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 4.01 or greater running on any version of
the Microsoft WindowsÒ 95, Windows 98, or Windows NTÒ operating system.
Hardware requirements are 16 megabytes of RAM and any Intel 486 or Pentium
Processor, or any DEC Alpha Processor. To design a component-based page with
Access, or browse a page created with Access, you must have Microsoft Internet
Explorer 5.x or greater.
Customers must own an Office 2000 license
in order to browse a Web page interactively using the Office Web Components.
Organizations that own an Enterprise Agreement for Office 2000 and that plan to
deploy Office 2000 in phases can enable early adopters of Office 2000 to share
component-based Web pages with users who haven’t yet installed Office 2000.
They do this by enabling auto- downloading of the components via the Microsoft
Internet Explorer built-in component installer.
Office 2000 users create interactive Web
pages with the Web Components by saving Excel workbooks as Web pages or by
using the Data Access Pages designer in Access. These pages contain HTML
<Object> tags that refer to the ClassIDs of the Web Components. When
users browse a page with Microsoft Internet Explorer—if the components are
installed on their computers—the page will come alive and they will be able to
interact with it. If the components are not installed, they will see a
hyperlink pointing to the Web Components installation program.
The Office 2000 Setup program
automatically installs the Web Components. They can also be installed when a
user browses a component-based Web page using the Microsoft Internet Explorer
component download mechanism. This is for corporations that have Enterprise or
Select agreements and are rolling out Office 2000 in phases. Early adopters of
Office 2000 can publish interactive, component-based pages using Microsoft
Excel or Access. Other users who are licensed for Office 2000 through an
Enterprise agreement but have not yet installed it can download the components
automatically the first time they browse an interactive Web page. To make this
possible, administrators check the Enable Auto-download option of the Office
Web Components page of the custom setup wizard and make sure that the Web
Components automatic installation files (msowcin.cab and msowc.cab) are
available on an Office installation server. When a user who has not yet
installed Office 2000 browses a Web page containing references to the Office
Web Components, Internet Explorer will detect that the components are not
installed and will download them automatically from the corporate Office
installation server. The codebase attribute of the <OBJECT> tag that
triggers this action looks like this:
codebase=http://MyOfficeServer/Office/msowc.cab
Internet Explorer fetches the CAB file
from the codebase URL, checks the digital signature and, at the user’s agreement,
unpacks it and installs it.
If the components are not available,
either because they are not installed or because the user is using a browser
that does not support COM components, a hyperlink points to the Web Components
installation program. Administrators can also configure a message to be
displayed explaining what to do to enable browsing the page with the
components. Here is the Custom Installation Wizard page where administrators
control these parameters:
If you are browsing your corporate
intranet with Internet Explorer and you have not yet installed Office 2000,
here is what you will see if you browse an interactive, component-based Web
page created by an Office 2000 user:
Answering “Yes” installs the Office Web
Components and the Microsoft Data Access Components on your machine. Answering
“No" leaves the components uninstalled. The page will still load, but in
the regions of the page where you would see the components, you will see a
hyperlink to the components installation program.
Users create interactive Web pages from
Excel by selecting the Save As Web Page command from the Excel File menu.
Expanding the Interactive Options buttons reveals the following options:
Users can publish static HTML or can
publish items on their spreadsheets—cell ranges, charts, or PivotTable or Query
Table views—interactively. When published interactively, the .htm page that is
generated contains OBJECT tags that refer to the Office Web Components. When a
user browses the page with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or 5.0, the controls
are instantiated in place, providing interactive regions inside the page. If
the Web Components are not installed, the user sees a hyperlink to the installation
program. Users browsing with Netscape Navigator or another browser that does
not support COM components will not see the controls.
Interactive Web pages can also be
designed directly in the Data Access Pages designer in Microsoft Access. Users
can add Office Web Components to a Web page by dragging and dropping from the
Toolbox. In addition, the Data Access Pages designer contains the Office 2000
Field List, which allows users to build up complex data pages from databases
without first building complicated SQL statements.
In addition to the Data Access Pages
designer, pages with the Web Components can be edited by any HTML editor that
supports COM controls, such as Microsoft FrontPage 98, FrontPage 2000, the
Office Visual Script editor, or Microsoft Word 2000.
There is a list of 4800 Web calculators
on http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators.html.
These range from a Lye
Calculator (for making soap) to a Capital
Gains Calculator (for making money). Many such calculators
are typically created in Microsoft Excel. The Office spreadsheet component
makes it possible to use those Excel calculations on a Web page by presenting a
grid that the user can type into.
More advanced users can use the Office
spreadsheet component with the Data Access Pages to create "Recalc behind
HTML" documents without any programming or HTML editing. (“Recalc behind
HTML” documents look like any other Web page but do calculations using the
spreadsheet component’s calculation engine.)
Developers can use the Office spreadsheet
component in Web-based applications such as Expense-report systems or with
Microsoft Internet Information Services running Active Server Pages.
Web Calculations Using the Office Spreadsheet Web
Component Grid
Any user will be able to go into the
Excel Save to the Web dialog box and create a Web page that uses Office
spreadsheet components to deliver the same model on the Web. This is an
important scenario because it moves one of the key pieces of Excel
functionality—the ability to perform calculations—to the Web, where people can
find it.
Let’s say you’re an Excel user building a
model that analyzes direct-mail response rates. You want to make your work
available to other users throughout the company, so you open up your model,
which might look something like this:
You might have even gone to the trouble
of protecting all cells except those the user is supposed to type in. To create
the Web page, use the Save to the Web command and choose the Interactive
option. The resulting Web page will look like this:
Spreadsheet Recalc Behind HTML
In this case, the Office spreadsheet
component is used to provide recalc for an HTML page. Let’s say the creator of
the Response Rate Calculator wants to give the page a totally different look.
He/she wants background images, drop-downs to fill in values, and lots of
pictures. Maybe something like this:
The spreadsheet component supports the OLE Simple Provider databinding
interface (OLEDB). This makes it possible to tie other controls on the page to
Office spreadsheet component cells using Microsoft Internet Explorer data
binding. Here’s what the user will do:
1. Publish the page as usual.
2. Open the page in the Data Access Pages
editor.
3. Right-click on the spreadsheet and
select Properties to view the Property Page.
4. Set the Visible property of the
spreadsheet control to False.
5. Set the BoundCells property of the
spreadsheet to the list of cells the user would like to bind to.
6. Place the controls on the Data Access
Page and set their DataSource properties to Spreadsheet 1 and their DataField
properties to the correct cell name (D5 etc). This will automatically connect
the controls up to the values in the spreadsheet.
Use Office Spreadsheet Web Component in Custom Solutions
Corporate application developers will use
the Office spreadsheet component to enable a variety of solutions. A classic
example is the Expense Report application. A typical entry screen includes
several different calculations (for example, mileage) as well as calculations
that happen in two directions. The Microsoft expense report is a typical
example that the Office spreadsheet component can handle. Here's how it might
look in a Web page.
Note that expense reports need a simple recalc engine,
data entry, layout, and formatting. But they also require business logic and
scripting to post the information from the Expense Report entry screen.
A developer would build the expense report in Excel and
then save it as an interactive Web page. He/she would then open the page in the
Data Access Pages designer, Visual Script Editor, or Microsoft Visual InterDevÔ Web
development system to add scripting and business logic.
Office PivotTable Web Components offer Office users the
best way to analyze data in Microsoft Internet Explorer. The PivotTable
component combines the list features of Excel (sort, autofilter, and outline)
with the autosummarizing features of PivotTable views into a single COM
component that runs in Internet Explorer. Simple mouse or keyboard gestures
allow users to seamlessly transition between an ordinary list view of their
data and a pivot view. Here’s a PivotTable dynamic view showing sales by month.
(Some sales have been expanded to show the detail records behind the sales
figure.)
PivotTable Author and User
In most cases, the author of a PivotTable dynamic view
is not the user. The author is responsible for the initial appearance of the
PivotTable view, and the user can use the dynamic runtime features to
investigate the information.
How Is a PivotTable Web Component Created?
A PivotTable component can be created two ways:
·
By creating a list or PivotTable dynamic view in
Excel and saving it as an interactive Web page. The PivotTable Web Component
will be used to display the information.
·
By building from scratch in the Data Access
Pages designer. The easiest way is to drag a table from the Access Field List
onto a Data Access Page. A PivotTable component bound to the table will be
automatically created for you.
What Can I Do With a PivotTable Component in the Browser?
·
Pivot
·
Browse report data
·
Dynamically filter and sort
·
Group by row or by column
·
Create totals
·
Work efficiently with large or small amounts of
data
·
Drill into the details behind totals
·
Chart the results and see the chart update
automatically in response to my actions in the browser
PivotTable Web Component
Examples: A Classic List
The following simple PivotTable dynamic view shows a
list of sales records and drop zones for pivoting. This can be created in two
ways:
·
By publishing a list from an Excel spreadsheet
·
By dragging a row source from the Access Field
List
PivotTable Web Component
Examples: A Classic Pivot
Here’s a simple PivotTable dynamic view showing a pivot
of orders. This can be created in three ways:
·
By publishing a PivotTable dynamic view from an
Excel spreadsheet
·
By dragging a row source from the Office Field
List and using pivoting commands
·
By dragging a cube from the Office Field List. A
cube is a multi-dimensional datasource, such as the Microsoft Decision Support
Server, which supports the Microsoft Multi-Dimensional OLEDB API (aka Tensor).
PivotTable Web Component
Example: The Pivot and List Integrated
Double-clicking a cell displays a grid of the detail
records behind the cell total(s). The data for this detail comes from a
relational database instead of a decision support server.
The Office Chart Web Component enables viewing and
interacting with pre-authored, data-bound charts in Microsoft Internet Explorer
4.0 and 5.0. Charts can be bound to the spreadsheet component, to the
PivotTable component, to the Data Source component, to ADO recordsets, or to
any COM control or HTML intrinsic that supports the OLESimpleProvider
databinding interface. The data driving the chart can therefore be stored in
the HTML of the page itself or can be supplied remotely from a database server
such as Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle, or from a Decision Support Server. As
the user updates numbers in a spreadsheet component, or as data is updated in
the back-end server, the chart automatically updates, scales, and sizes
appropriately.
Like all Web Components, Office chart is fully
programmable and supports a rich object model enabling developers to build
highly customized Office-based solutions that run in the browser and take full
advantage of Internet Explorer.
Creating a Web Page with an
Office Chart Web Component
With Office 2000, you can create Web pages with the
chart component in one of two ways:
·
By selecting a chart in Excel and then saving
the selection as an interactive Web page
·
By designing a Data Access Page and dragging a
chart from the toolbox. This launches a chart Wizard that helps you hook up
your chart to any data sources on the page.
The Office Data Source Web Component is
the reporting engine behind Data Access Pages, PivotTable dynamic views, and
data-bound charts. It manages database connections and serves up records for
the other components to display. It relies on Microsoft Active Data Objects
(ADO) for connecting with relational databases such as Microsoft Access,
Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle, and on the Microsoft Decision Support Server
(DCUBE) for connecting to multi-dimensional data.
The Data Source component provides
programmatic interfaces to perform the following operations:
·
Create a new Office Data Source object and
associate it with a database connection
·
Add rowsources (tables, views, stored
procedures, or SQL statements) to an Office Data Source
·
Build flat SQL and hierarchical SHAPE commands
to retrieve the data represented by the rowsources from the back-end database
and the ADO Shape provider
·
Return standard ADO Recordsets, sometimes linked
together in hierarchies, to data-consuming objects on the page, including the
Internet Explorer 4.0 built-in data binding agent, the PivotTable component, or
the chart
·
Modify the SHAPE definition in response to user
requests to group and aggregate base data
·
Use the services of the Microsoft decision
support engine to support a pivot UI in the PivotTable component
·
Persist an Office Data Source definition to a
file and load from a file
The spreadsheet, chart, and PivotTable
components support exporting to Excel. If you browse a component-based Web page
in Microsoft Internet Explorer and manipulate the data (perhaps by entering new
values in a spreadsheet or filtering a PivotTable dynamic view), you can extend
your analysis using the full power of Excel. Simply click the Export to Excel
command button on the component toolbar. This command exports the data from the
current component--as it appears in your browser--into Excel, allowing you to
save and modify your own copy of the spreadsheet, chart, or PivotTable dynamic
view. This is particularly useful for extending a model for later republishing
or for accessing the superior printing capability of Excel.
All Office Web Components are fully
programmable via COM automation. Any container that supports COM can reference
the type library of the components by setting a reference from their project to
the Office Web Components. For example, here is how a Visual BasicÒ
development system programmer would refer to the Office Web Components COM
library:
The Object Models for the Office Web
Components are fully documented in Office 2000 Help and are available in any
object browser that supports COM type library inspection, such as the Visual
Basic object browser. The object model help file is msowcvba.chm.
Office Web Components can be used in server-side ASP
solutions with Microsoft Internet Information Services, allowing developers to
hide the formulas on which their calculations were based or to build a solution
that runs on any browser. In server-based solutions (because the controls are
not active at the client), the user interface that the controls provide cannot
collect input from the user: The command bars, field lists, and input grids are
not present. It is the developer’s responsibility to collect input from the
user with standard HTML input controls and to then—using these inputs as
parameters—manipulate the components on the server via their object models and
return results to the user via the response.write method of the active server.
The ASP scripting (pseudocode) for a server-side
spreadsheet-based solution looks like this:
Set ss = CreateObject(owc.spreadsheet) 'Instantiate the
spreadsheet component
ss.DataAsHTML = "file://c:\mysheet.htm" 'Load up the file that contains the model
ss.Range("B6").value = response("InputValue")
'The value that came from the user
document.write "The answer is " &
ss.Range("A5")
All Web Components support server-side
results sets. The spreadsheet will typically be used to perform a calculation,
storing the result in a range. The value of that range is then shipped down to
the client as HTML text. Both the chart and the PivotTable components support
an Export Picture method. In server-side solutions, developers can manipulate
their object models based on user inputs, perhaps using an input box to select
a value on which to filter results, for example, and then send results down to
the client browser as a GIF. Even though the components do not need to be
installed on the client in this scenario, an Office 2000 license is still
required at the client in order to view pages that are generated using the Web
Components on the server.
Together, Microsoft Office 2000 and
FrontPage 2000 provide organizations with a comprehensive solution for creating
and managing workgroup webs or intranets. Office Web Components can be easily
incorporated into FrontPage 2000 based intranet or Internet sites. Users can
then edit Office Web Components directly inside FrontPage 2000 thanks to
tighter integration between the two products.
Q: Why would I use the Web Components
when I can save my regular Office documents to the Web in Office 2000?
A: Use the Web Components when you want to create Web pages from
spreadsheets and databases that contain interactive regions to allow people
viewing the pages to manipulate and explore the information, tailoring it to
their own needs. Save Web pages using static HTML when you want people to see
published information but not be able to interact with it.
Q: What happens when I view an
interactive Web page with Netscape Navigator?
A: You will see a static HTML representation of your page as the author
last saved it. You can still see the information, but you cannot interact with
it.
Q: Are the Office Web Components written
in Java?
A: No. They were created using Microsoft Visual C++Ò
development system.
Q: How do I further analyze an
interactive Web page?
A: The Spreadsheet, Chart, and PivotTable components support exporting
from a Web page to Microsoft Excel.
Q: If I don’t want to use the Web
Components, can I turn them off?
A: Yes. You can configure your network installation server to not
install the Web Components. This also disables interactive Web publishing from
Excel and the Data Access Pages designer from Access.
Q: Can I build solutions with the Office
Web Components using Visual Basic or Visual C++ development systems?
A: Yes. Because the Office Web Components are COM controls, they can be
used in any development environment that supports COM, including all the
programming tools in Microsoft Visual StudioÒ development system. They can be
embedded in Visual Basic Forms or in native Windows programs created with
Visual C++ development system. Developers can freely redistribute the Office
Web Components as part of custom solutions, provided that the client computer
on which the solution is to be run is licensed for Office 2000 as described in
the licensing section above.
Q: How do the Office Web Components
stack up against Lotus eSuite?
A: The Microsoft Office Web Components are tightly integrated with the
Microsoft Office applications to enhance Web publishing and browsing. They
augment the capabilities of Excel and Access, enabling Office 2000 users to
create new, interactive Web-based scenarios while preserving and enhancing
their investment in Office training and expertise, and their existing Office
documents. Lotus eSuite, on the other hand, is a Java-based alternative to
Lotus SmartSuite that emulates the functionality of the standard Lotus suite of
applications, but has fewer features and poorer performance. eSuite has more
demanding hardware requirements than the Office Web Components (32 meg of RAM
vs. 16 meg for the Office components), and is not available, even in beta form,
on any operating system platforms that are not supported by the Office Web
Components.
For more information: http://www.microsoft.com/office/
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