Chapter 13 -- Exchange Server Routing Objects

Chapter 13

In the last chapter, we took a look at the Microsoft Exchange Server Event Service technology, which can be used to solve many types of business problems, most commonly those associated with automating administrative tasks and other processes. Business processes usually involve some type of routing, approval, and overall workflow strategy, and while the Scripting Agent technology can handle these routing and workflow applications, it requires developers to write large amounts of code to handle common routing functionality. Most developers don't want to do that. Like you, they'd rather focus on mapping out business processes and have built-in logic implement the most common tasks. To help simplify your development of automated business processes, Microsoft created the Exchange Server Routing Objects.

In this chapter, we will take a look at the architecture for the Exchange Server Routing Objects, which is an extension of the structure for the Event Scripting Agent. Your knowledge of the Event Scripting Agent and the process of creating bindings will enhance your understanding of the Exchange Server Routing Objects architecture.

The easiest way for you to move from creating Event Scripting Agents to creating routing object applications is to convert an existing and applicable Event Scripting application to a routing object application. In this chapter, you will see how the Expense Report application from Chapter 12 can be converted to a routing object application with very little modification. When you first look at the changes, you might wonder what the advantages to creating a routing object application are, but as you look more carefully at the sample, notice how you can modify the flow and logic of the application relatively easily.