You can use a number of methods to customize your digital dashboard from within the Office XP Developer environment. These methods include:
Before you can use the Office XP Developer environment to build Web Parts for an existing dashboard site of a SharePoint Portal Server workspace, you must open the workspace in Office XP Developer. Opening the workspace displays the contents of the workspace in the development environment and creates a project file (Portal.ddp) in the Portal folder of the workspace. The Solution Explorer displays the dashboard site, its Web Parts and any resources, and any subdashboards, hierarchically. The Properties Window displays all the properties for the workspace, Web Parts, and subdashboard.
All workspaces include a Portal folder that contains all the Web Parts, subdashboards, and the resources for that workspace. In order to open the workspace and to create the project file, you must name the project Portal. If you name the project anything else, it will not connect to the workspace.
The preceding procedure adds a project file, called Portal.ddp, to the Portal folder. In addition, it adds a solution file to your client computer in the following location: operating_system_drive\Documents and Settings\user_name\My Documents\Office Developer Projects\PortalX\Portal.sln.
The solution file contains references to the projects that are part of that solution. Double-clicking a solution file opens the Office XP Development Environment and loads the referenced projects.
After you create a project and solution file for your workspace, you can open it in the Office XP Developer environment as follows:
The project opens in the Office Developer environment. If you do not have the solution file on your computer, you still follow the steps in the following procedure to open an existing dashboard project directly from the workspace:
The project opens in the Office Developer environment.