+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Reviewers Guide

Visual Studio Light Switch 2011 Reviewers Guide

Date post: 23-Oct-2014
Category:
Upload: yaroing
View: 127 times
Download: 0 times
Share this document with a friend
Popular Tags:
47
Reviewer’s Guide July 2011
Transcript

Reviewer’s GuideJuly 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract, Copyright Information, Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III

LightSwitch Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV

LightSwitch in Action: Sample Use-Case Scenarios

+ Law Firm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

+ Optometrist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

+ Toy Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

+ Restaurant Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Top Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Product Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > REVIEWER’S GUIDE P I

Co

nten

ts

This reviewer’s guide was created to give you an overview of Microsoft® Visual Studio® LightSwitch™ 2011,

the new Visual Studio product that lets you quickly and easily build powerful business applications.

This guide begins with an overview of LightSwitch, and then outlines a few use-case scenarios to give you

an idea of how it could apply to a range of businesses. From a law firm to a toy company, from espresso

machine repairs to an eye doctor’s office, there are countless opportunities to efficiently build the

applications you need to meet your unique business challenges.

We’ll do our best to update this document as new information becomes available—as we continue to

improve the product, the information you read here is subject to change. For the latest information about

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/lightswitch.

Copyright and Legal Notice ©2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is provided “as-is.” Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it.

Some information relates to pre-released product which may be substantially modified before it’s commercially released. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here.

Some examples are for illustration only and are fictitious. No real association is intended or inferred.

This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes.

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > REVIEWER’S GUIDE P II

Ab

stra

ct

For years, we’ve built tools and environments for professional developers, including

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium, and Ultimate.

On one hand, development projects have gotten increasingly complex, and more

features were needed to help programmers build their dream applications. On the

other, more and more people are savvy technology users and busy professionals

who have a specific business problem to solve.

LightSwitch lets you build business-critical applications quickly—and you only

need a little technical code know-how to get it done. Before you know it, you’ll

have a right-fit solution for your team, project, or department that helps you get back

to the business at hand.

Welcome to the family, LightSwitch!

Int

rod

ucti

on

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > REVIEWER’S GUIDE P III

Power up LightSwitch, and you’ll have a working application up and running in mere

minutes. That’s right—minutes. You don’t have to worry about where to start or all

the geeky back-end technology. Just choose the programming language you’re more

comfortable in—Visual Basic or Visual C#—tap into the data, and get to work on the

business logic. Yup, it’s that easy.

The only coding you’ll do is the coding that only YOU can do.

LightSwitch includes all the core plumbing you’ll need to build a custom business

application. Since most business apps are centered around data and screens, you can

use screen templates and built-in common features (like validation, auto-save, cut and

paste, etc) to create your solution more quickly.

Use the built-in capabilities, grab what you need from the Visual Studio Gallery, piece

it together, and customize the bits that are unique to your business. Then deploy to

desktop, Web, or cloud, and get back to your priorities.

Build what you need without a computer science degree.

Lig

htSw

itch

Ove

rvie

w

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > REVIEWER’S GUIDE P IV

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P V

Your application will play well with others, too. You can pull data from a number

of existing data sources, (including SharePoint® 2010, SQL Server, and other third-party

databases) as well as export data to Excel® for reporting and analyzing data. And when

you’re ready to extend your solution, you or another developer can open it up in Visual

Studio Professional (or above) and party away. Since it’s built using architectural best

practices, your application will be easily extensible.

LightSwitch takes care of the tedious parts of development, without getting in the way

of your creativity. It’s the fastest, simplest way to develop a business application.

And it’s so flexible, any business can benefit from a custom LightSwitch application.

The next 34 pages cover a few sample use cases to get your imagination going about

how you can put LightSwitch to work.

Lig

htSw

itch

Ove

rvie

w L

ight

Swit

ch O

verv

iew

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > REVIEWER’S GUIDE P V

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 1

Billing by the minute: Lawyers accounting for time is good for accounting.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

Andersen, Price & Hill is a growing law firm that needs to dial

up some efficiencies. They’ve got 240 billable employees across

five national offices, and, while they’re doing great work for their

clients, it’s tough for the accounting team to keep up

with the growth.

To maintain the firm’s current profitability levels, they need to

streamline some systems. The biggest opportunity? Get

the lawyers into the habit of tracking their time better,

so those hours can be processed and billed to the client

more efficiently.

Currently, the poor accounting team has to, first, nag the

lawyers and paralegals to actually submit their timesheets.

This involves email reminders, phone calls, more email

reminders and sometimes, in-person visits to guilt people

into reporting what they’ve done for the past week. It isn’t

fun for anyone.

COMPANY:Andersen, Price & Hill

INDUSTRY:Law Firm

COMPANY SIZE:240+

ISSUE:Time tracking

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 2

Accounting and Ops have seen it all:

+ Vague spreadsheets that line item the

client and ballpark minutes spent on each

per week.

+ Detailed Excel spreadsheets down to

two-minute increments, with client contact

names—but not their company.

+ PDF files that are clearly from shareware

or freeware programs, but need to be

manually entered into the database and

aren’t tracked by a :10 hour.

+ And emails sent by the billable employees

in response to getting four reminders to

submit their time.

Clearly, AP&H lawyers like doing “lawyerly”

things and aren’t happy with the

administrative part of their jobs.

The time-tracking and reporting issues came up

during a quarterly meeting among executives.

Partners were trying to award bonuses to top

performers; HR was ascertaining comp days for

over-achievers; and the COO was escalating the

accounting team’s biggest frustration—tracking

billable hours and invoicing accurately.

When the timesheet data does come in, it creates a whole new world of work for the accounting team to process. Currently, it seems like everyone has their own method of keeping track of their hours.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 3

The next day, the IT director, Mark, got an earful

from the department heads—and each wanted

their needs met by the end of the quarter.

Mark tasked his team—Josh and Shauna, both IT

support technicians—to get it done. He outlined

the parameters that had been assigned to him as

must-haves in the solution.

The new time-tracking tool would need to:

+ Be intuitive and really, really easy to use.

+ Track time both by a user-initiated

stopwatch or via manual entry, and

round to ten-minute increments.

+ Offer drop-down fields for client,

task type, billability, and descriptions.

+ Allow for partners to approve paralegal

and associate timesheets, if needed.

+ Include functionality for creating and

submitting expense reports.

+ Pull client data from SharePoint when

new clients are added to the system,

populating the time-tracking program.

+ Send individual users weekly or daily

reminders, depending on personal preference

(or how delinquent they typically are).

+ Allow for double-billing.

+ Standardize the data and generate utilization

reports for HR, management, and

executives, then export the data to Excel

for additional analysis.

+ Flag time that doesn’t “look” right—ask user

to confirm accurate time when machine has

been idle for more than 30 minutes.

+ Allow partners to assign budgeted hours

to team or project and alert partner when

budget is 75% consumed and every 5%

increment thereafter.

The team had six weeks to get the job done—and still

had their day-to-day responsibilities to take care of.

First, they tried to find suitable off-the-shelf software

that could be customized to meet the requirements.

Everything they found was either too simple or too

robust (meaning too expensive). But they didn’t have

time—or the experience—to build it entirely from

scratch. That’s when they came across

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011.

Josh and Shauna were more experienced in installing

and updating software than developing it, but Josh

coded the firm’s website and eNewsletter, and

Shauna had built a few Excel spreadsheets with

macros for some of the lawyers throughout the firm.

That would pretty much be enough to get to work.

Clearly, this is going to be the best time tracking program EVER.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 4

LightSwitch was the perfect answer. The foundation was already built, and they could fit together

the required component parts to get a working prototype

up and running quickly. Then, they could customize the parts

essential for the business needs.

Josh installs the trial version on his machine, and powers it up.

He creates a new project in Visual Basic, and the product guides

them to start defining the data.

He identifies the first set of things he needs to track:

“Employee,” “Client,” “Project,” and “TimeEntry.”

He starts defining the properties associated

with each employee:

+ FirstName, LastName

+ EmployeeID

+ Email

+ Position/Title, constrained by choice list

(Associate, Partner, Paralegal, Admin)

+ UserName

Once he sets up similar tables for Clients and Projects, he wants

to assign multiple projects to each client as needed, as well as

assigning a team to each project. He is going to need another table

that would track additional information with the employee-to-client

relationships, including specific hourly rates. Once he builds this

table, EmployeeProject, he begins adding relationships with just a

couple of clicks.

The Designer is used to create new tables.

Start your project using Visual Basic or Visual C#—whichever you’re most comfortable with.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 5

Each project will be associated with a client; each EmployeeProject has a

relationship to a project; and each EmployeeProject will have TimeEntries

attached to it. Once the team is assigned to a project, relationships will be

added so employees could only bill to projects they are assigned to.

Josh has some service tickets to catch up on, so he hands the project

over to Shauna to add screens. She starts with the timecard entry

screen—the one that employees would be using every day.

She opens up a new data screen and adds two data elements:

TimeCard and TimeCardEntry.

Adding relationships connects multiple tables.

She defines the parameters of the screen:

+ Drop down to select project

+ Enter start time and end time

+ Default to current time period (1-15, 16-31), which she creates

by adding a bit of custom code.

She decides that it would be useful to have a screen where managers can review and approve timecards for their team. This will also be a handy screen to help team leads keep track of project burn.

Use built-in templates to create screens for common tasks.

Configure the screen template to meet your needs.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 6

Shauna quickly builds this screen and tries it out. She sees

that she needs to add a query.

She right-clicks the Project table and adds a query to filter

projects by manager. She then selects the TimeEntry table and

adds a query to filter the time entries by project so managers

will only see timecards for their direct reports. She changes the

screen to now use the query, updates it, and the tool is up

and running.

Now, how are managers going to know if their staff is keeping up

with their timesheets? Shauna thinks two things should happen:

Individual employees should be able to submit each timesheet

to their manager for approval, and managers should be alerted

when they log in if there are timesheets awaiting approval.

This’ll be a snap. She updates the Save button to say “Submit

Timecard.” (Lawyers at AP&H tend to be kinda picky, so she

wants the button to be really specific about what it’s for.)

The screen is completed, but it would benefit from additional data.

Adding a submit timecard button is simple.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 7

Hrm. One thing Shauna notices when she’s testing it out is

that people can submit timecards with “negative” hours.

That’s not good. She adds code to make sure the end time

is after the start time.

Then, Shauna needs to set permission levels for managers,

allowing them to approve timecards and in turn, notifying

the accounting team as to what hours are billable to the client.

The easiest, most efficient way to make this happen is to

create a new “PendingTimeCards” screen. This new screen

will display only the timecards awaiting approval for client

projects the logged-in manager is responsible for. Shauna

adds a new screen and uses the SearchByManager query on

TimeCards she previously created to populate the screen.

Once she has the screen up, she goes into the Access Control

settings for the project and creates a new Permission token,

TimeCardApprovers. She then selects the PendingTimeCards

screen and adds code to the CanView method to check if the

user has TimeCardApprover permissions before allowing the

screen to be displayed.

Users are assigned a permission token, which differentiates the people who can approve timesheets.

Authorization levels allow users with the right permission levels to see the appropriate screens.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 8

Shauna runs the application to test the new functionality.

As expected, the new PendingTimeCards screen doesn’t

appear in her navigation menu—she hasn’t granted herself

the permission. She stops the application, goes back into the

Access Control setting for the project, and grants herself the

TimeCardApprover permission for debugging. She refreshes

the tool, sees the updated Pending TimeCards screen, and

it works just as expected.

When an employee submits a timecard, the tool will

automatically send a notification email to the appropriate

manager that a timecard is awaiting approval. If it hasn’t been

approved within 72 hours, another reminder is sent. Every time

a manager logs in to the system, they’ll see which timecards

need to be approved, and which employees are slacking and

still need to complete one.

Jumping back to the TimeCardEntry screen, Shauna adds a

button, “ApproveTimeCard,” which will mark the timecard as

approved to forward the information to Accounting and HR.

After a week of chipping away at the program in their spare time, Shauna and Josh have about 85% of it up and running. But they get stuck on the stopwatch feature. Time for a chat with the boss.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 9

Mark, the IT director, is stumped too. They could hire a

freelancer to write a custom bit for them, but that would be a

hassle. Before searching through a bunch of contractor résumés,

he pulls up LightSwitch and opens up the Extension Manager.

Maybe someone already solved this and was sharing it with the

community. He searches for “stopwatch.”

Score! A partner had already built one and it was available

for twenty bucks—a small price for such a major feature.

He clicks through to the partner’s website, buys it, then downloads

and installs it.

Mark restarts LightSwitch and goes back into the properties of the

project. Now that he sees the StopWatch extension in the list of

available extensions, he includes it in the project.

To incorporate the stopwatch, Mark needs to add a custom control

to the TimeCardEntry screen. He dashes off a bit of custom code to

connect it to the StartTime/EndTime fields.

Mark, Josh, and Shauna try it out for a few days and dial in a

couple of the screens.

The guys think it’s ready to go, but before they deploy, Shauna

wants to gussy up the look a bit. She knows that the lawyers will

be more receptive to using a new tool if it looks slick. They love

their new Windows Phones, so they’re going to want something

that looks more consumer-y.

She pops into the Extension Manager and searches for “shells.”

Based on the previews, there are a few that look pretty good.

The Extension Manager includes loads of free or affordable useful add-ons developed by both Microsoft and third-party partners.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 10

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

LAW

FIR

M

They’re ready to publish. Since Mark’s the boss, he gets to

push the button.

Mark decides to keep it as a desktop application, since they

already have an IIS server in house. So he simply specifies the

server location, selects the database server, and clicks “publish.”

They fire off an email to the entire company with a link to

download and install the new software. Even though it takes a

week to roll it out across the whole company, everything goes

smoothly. From the admins to the executives, everyone finds it

really easy to use. It’s simple enough to get the hang of the first

time around, without training, and it has just enough features—

but not too many—to get the job done.

Shauna selects a metro-inspired theme and enables it for

the project. She goes into the Properties, selects it from the

list of available Themes, and just like that, the app looks totally

different—but still works just the same.

The application is functionally complete, but it could look a bit snazzier.

There are plenty of themes to choose from in the Extension Manager to spruce up the application without being a designer.

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 11

THE FInAL LIGHTSWITCH SOLUTIOn

Basically, it’s exactly what the firm needed.

The executive team was thrilled with the solution. It was

slicker than they expected from the IT team. And since

the hard cost was so low, the firm had a positive return

on the investment within a single week of getting more

accurate billings reporting.

While accounting still had to nag folks in person from

time to time, and tracking time is still kind of tedious, the

solution removed a lot of tension between departments

and actually made it quite a bit easier to get better insight

into billings—and to get invoicing turned around within

hours instead of days.

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 12

Inventory and Insurance: A small vision clinic sets their sights on better service.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

Litware, a four-doctor optometrist practice, has about

3,000 patients they see each year. Business is steady and

they’ve just gotten a new office manager, Zach, to manage

the receptionist and the day-to-day operations of the practice.

After a month on the job, Zach has identified a number

of improvements that could be made to the business.

First off, all the patients are being tracked using index cards.

In a recipe box.

Clearly a contact database needs to be drawn up that can

store billing, prescription, referral, and insurance information,

along with a history of past appointments. Ideally, this could be

attached to the email system to send reminders to schedule

annual examinations.

COMPANY:Litware

INDUSTRY:Optometrist

COMPANY SIZE:8

ISSUE:Outdated admin systems

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 13

Zach also saw that the frame inventory was very well managed

by the spectacle sales manager, Eva. She kept a detailed inventory

in Excel, which made reordering frames easy. She also tracked

which styles and brands were most popular, managed the pricing,

determined when to discount frames, and knew that they could

turn the entire frame wall at least four times a year.

On the other hand, Litware had absolutely no system for managing the contact lens inventory.

They had over 30 brands on hand, and once a month the

receptionist was tasked with sorting through them and ordering

more if any given lens had fewer than three in stock.

This included both the lenses that were resold to patients at a profit,

as well as those the doctors would give out to patients as samples

for fit and comfort. If a lens was out of stock, the doctors would

frequently change their initial recommendation to a secondary

choice. Not great for the patients. Meanwhile, the office had $3,000

in contact lens inventory, but no idea if it was making a profit on it.

Zach brought these two key opportunities up with the doctors, and

proposed bringing in a computer consultant to set up the customer

database properly and build an Excel spreadsheet with Pivot Tables.

They were game as long as it didn’t get too expensive.

After a little online research, Zach found Fabrikam (yup, the very firm

who crafted Coho’s solution in the Visual Studio 2010 Reviewer’s

Guide), and called them up.

Fabrikam sent over one of their consultants, Jeff, to meet with the

Litware administrative team to get a sense of what they needed.

After 90 minutes discussing the details, Jeff and Zach had a pretty

detailed list.

Jeff proposed creating two custom software solutions—

one to track and manage client and insurance data, and a

separate system to monitor contact lens inventory. The trick

was to design them both within budget—Jeff knew he’d want to use

LightSwitch to keep the solution affordable. Once they agreed on a

price, Jeff got to work.

Jeff is familiar with LightSwitch, so he fires it up and goes straight

to the Extension Manager to search for an existing template for the

client tracking system. Success! He pulls it down and starts a new

project with it. He runs it to see what he’s working with.

Don’t start entirely from scratch—head to the Extension Manager to download a project template.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 14

It’s got the basics: First Name, Last Name, Phone, Phone 2, Email (optional),

Address, Employer, and Employer Address.

He sees, however, that fields for insurance information—including provider,

policy number, group number, and Social Security number—are missing.

He creates a new table for the insurance information, then establishes

a relationship between the insurance and client tables. He implements a

custom validation rule to ensure the Social Security number is the right

length and the right format.

Based on health care regulations and company policy, some

employees would have limited access to patients’ personal data,

including Social Security numbers. Zach and the bookkeeper would

need to see Social Security numbers for processing insurance, but

the doctors, Eva, and the receptionist wouldn’t need access.

Jeff goes into the Application Properties and selects the Access

Control tab. He creates a new permission: “CanViewSSN” for Zach

and the bookkeeper.

FPO

Build in various permission levels to make sure sensitive information stays private.

Add validation to ensure consistent, accurate data entry.

It’s simple to tweak the Client Table with custom fields, like Social Security number.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 15

Next he builds the Supplier Table. That’s easy, too.

The Supplier information includes:

+ Company Name

+ Address

+ Contact Person

+ Phone

+ Website

Now he can add the relationship before building out the

end-user screens. Using the Add Relationship from the action

bar in LightSwitch, he specifies that the Supplier can have one

or more Products and that every Product must have a Supplier.

It’s a snap to create organized, customized product tables to manage inventory.

He returns to the customer table and adds code to the

customers’ CanRead Method. He’ll add users later on before

deploying the application.

He’s psyched—this has only taken about 15 minutes so far.

Time to move on to the contact lens inventory solution.

He builds out the product table first, then adds suppliers.

The Product Table includes:

+ Brand Name

+ Product Name

+ SKU

+ Lens Strength

+ Hard/Soft

+ Daily/Monthly Disposable

+ Quantity per pack

+ Toric/Non-Toric

+ Special Notes

If a user doesn’t have permission to view Social Security numbers, the data is hidden from them.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 16

Jeff is ready to work on the front end of the application and gets

to work adding the screens.

To allow users to manage and maintain the inventory, he builds a

simple grid screen so the doctors and office manager can see at a

glance what’s currently in stock. They can drill into the details from

here if needed. For convenience, he adds a custom validation rule

so items turn red when in-stock inventory drops below 10.

Once products are entered, adding a relationship connects each item to its supplier.

Users can drill into details when they need to manage the stock.

Creating a grid screen for the inventory will make it easy for users to understand.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 17

The new query captures input from the barcode reader and searches the inventory.

The Query Designer steps you through developing queries and setting parameters.

To minimize the hassle of counting each lens as it comes in,

Jeff orders Litware a barcode scanner. (Fabrikam’s making a

good profit on this job using LightSwitch, so he’s not worried

about the $30 expense.)

He adds another screen so when Zach or the receptionist

scans a SKU code on a lens, it pulls up the product details

and allows him to adjust the inventory.

Adding a query for ProductBySKUCode, he builds a search

screen based on the query results from available data. When

an end user scans an item, the system will retrieve the product

that matches that SKU.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 18

If the SKU doesn’t exist in the current inventory, Jeff wants

to prompt the user to add a new product. He builds a

screen and writes some code to handle this.

For tracking inventory being sold and coming OUT of the

system, Jeff needs to include a simple POS system that will

generate customer invoices on the spot. This’ll be a snap.

He creates the new code, tables, and screens to support

invoicing, then adds a button to the customer screen:

“Create New Invoice.” It doesn’t make sense to invoice

separately for contact lenses and frames, so he adds the

core services the office offers in a screen, allowing the

receptionist to check off the appropriate fields:

+ Routine Exam [Amount fixed]

+ Follow-up Exam [Amount open]

+ Special Treatment [Amount open]

+ Contact Lenses

+ Frames

+ Glasses Lenses

The invoice is related to both customer and products. Jeff

implements logic so when Contact Lenses is selected, it prompts

the user to scan the SKU and then automatically subtracts it

from inventory.

Litware currently handles all their invoicing in Microsoft Word,

and Jeff doesn’t really see a need to force too much change on

the little company.

To keep the invoicing experience consistent with their current

practices, he just adds a button to the invoice screen “Generate

Invoice,” which will open a Word template populated with the

invoice values. This just takes a bit of code to get it working the

way he’d like.

If the query doesn’t return results, you can prompt the user to add a new product.

A quick checklist within the application makes sure everything gets captured on each customer invoice.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 19

He’s ready to head back to the Litware office. He sets up

a time with Zach for the next week—he doesn’t want to let

on that it took him less than two days to put the application

together for them.

Once he’s in the local Litware environment, he deploys

the app to their Windows® Small Business Server 2011.

First he installs it on the receptionist’s machine.

Since it’s the first time the application is running on a local

machine, he’ll need to set up the user accounts.

He logs in to the administrator account and heads to the

user maintenance part of the application to set up the

profiles and permissions.

Adding a new user is totally straightforward, just as you’d

expect. Jeff simply defines the role (receptionist) and gives

her a log-in name and password. Since he’d already

established that the default setting for viewing Social

Security numbers would be “no,” he’ll only have to tweak

that permission for Zach and the bookkeeper.

The LightSwitch application now generates invoices in Microsoft Word—with no effort from the end user.

A bit of Visual Basic code creates detailed and easy-to-read customer invoices.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

OPT

OM

ETR

IST

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 20

Litware’s new client solution was ready to go.

He installed it on the rest of their machines within an hour

and gave them a quick 30-minute tutorial on using it.

Since it was so intuitive, the team got the hang of it right

away. Slogging through the recipe box of patient cards

would be time-consuming, but once all the data was

entered, the new application felt like magic, and the clinic

was getting patients checked in and out faster than ever.

The upshot for Jeff? His boss’s boss saw the sweet profit

on the little project, and gave him a couple of comp days

as a reward for being so efficient with LightSwitch.

THE FInAL LIGHTSWITCH SOLUTIOn

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 21

Planning a product launch: Being organized at a toy company without being a killjoy.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

TOY

COM

PAn

Y

Boris had what his buddies thought was the best job

ever—for the past six years, he managed releases at

a video game company.

But he always had a soft spot for more traditional toys. . .

ones you could get your hands on and play with. So when

a headhunter called him about a gig at Tailspin Toys

as a project manager, he jumped on it.

Tailspin was a perfect fit for his passion. They created puzzle,

card, and strategy games. The company had around 1,200

employees in six offices across the globe. From ideation to

creation, they handled every step of designing and developing

toys (without actually running any factories).

His first assignment? Bringing a new puzzle game to market.

Code name Amazeballs, this game was a 3D multi-marble

maze, and it was super cool.

COMPANY:Tailspin Toys

INDUSTRY:Toy Company

COMPANY SIZE:1,200

ISSUE:Managing a product launch

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 22

Boris had plenty of experience in wrangling disparate teams and

managing schedules with overlapping dependencies. He was used

to slipping release dates and working with distribution channels to

make sure he still had shelf space. What he wasn’t prepared for in

his new role was all the manufacturing, testing, and certification

that building an actual toy requires.

But he wasn’t alone. There was a four-person team in place to

bring Amazeballs to market, and they had another 18 weeks to

pull it off in time for the holidays.

Each person on the team had a different focus.

Lyssa handled the overall budget; Shanae was covering the

testing and certifications; Geoff was on marketing; and Boris was

tasked with packaging and distribution. The team had a couple of

check-in meetings each week, and while it was clear everyone was

collaborating, everyone left the meetings with their own agenda in

mind. And no one really had a handle on the bigger picture.

Lyssa’s budget was 100% on track—which is always a red flag. She

tracked everything in Excel, and was relying on estimates to drive

the budget without having much visibility into the actual spend.

Geoff’s marketing content lived on a SharePoint 2010 site where

all the stakeholders could access and update at will—but version

control was a mess and the packaging still wasn’t locked.

The lead designer and engineer had used Microsoft Project to

manage the workflow up through the approved prototyping, and

handed that off to Shanae to finish up the testing and certification.

So they had a timeline in place, which only accounted for the

best-case scenario of sailing through the process in six weeks.

Boris was nervous.

Clearly, this product launch could go off the rails without any

warning. Potential risks and issues were being collected as little

more than meeting notes in Excel. Without consolidating all these

workstreams and data, the team wouldn’t really know what they

were up against to hit their launch date. And missing the holidays

would be a major fail.

Near the end of one of their weekly touch-base meetings,

Boris cleared his throat and asked if it’d be okay to consolidate

everyone’s contributions into a single application to track their

progress. The gang was a little skeptical—he was supposed to

be working on packaging and distribution, after all—but once

they heard his idea, they agreed.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

TOY

CO

MPA

nY

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 23

He proposed whipping up a quick application that

would give them an updated daily dashboard with

next-step tasks and dependencies that would carry

them to launch. It would pull key information from

Project Server and SharePoint, so everyone could still

work in the programs they were most comfortable in.

But this extra tool would help level up any risks and give

people insight into others’ progress.

The team spent 20 minutes brainstorming and white-

boarding their needs. The AmazeApp would need to:

+ Map estimates and actuals against the budget.

+ Flag critical issues in the testing process and

tie in with the engineers’ resource management

to make sure someone is available to tweak

the product as needed.

+ Track all content deliverables and filter on deadlines

(what’s due this week, this month, etc.).

+ Track open issues and risks, including those found in

the testing process.

+ Track budget.

While it sounded like a full-time job to some folks in the

room, Boris assured everyone it could be done by the

end of the week if he skipped the next hour-long check-in

meeting. He had a trick up his sleeve—in his former job,

he’d seen developers using LightSwitch to build custom

applications and he knew a bit about

development himself.

He snapped a pic of the whiteboard notes on his cell phone and was amped to make some progress.

On the bus ride home that night, Boris jots down

some additional criteria for the solution.

AmazeApp would also have to:

+ Be available from anyone’s PC, including some

non-Windows machines.

+ Have basic authentication: user/pass.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

TOY

CO

MPA

nY

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 24

Skipping the scrum two days later, Boris closes his door

and gets to work. He downloads and installs LightSwitch—

he’ll just expense it later—and gets to work.

Picking the programming language is easy. Since he is

tapping into local data sources and is most concerned about

creating intuitive visualizations, he goes with C#. (It didn’t hurt

that he’d seen lots of C# code samples online.)

He starts by pulling in data from the existing data source.

Everything lives in SharePoint currently, so that’s the only

one he’ll have to tap into.

Then he digs in to create the screens he’ll need, starting with a

dashboard using the List and Details screen template that shows

the status of each task—budget vs. actuals and critical milestones

in the timeline. He generates queries to populate this screen.

Then, it’s a matter of adding code to handle the “overdueness”

of a given work item.

Overall, the solution is clean and simple, and since it isn’t too

specific to Amazeballs, it could be repurposed for other launches.

A screen for milestones is built with the Screen Designer and a couple of queries to populate it.

A bit of code is added to track and manage the status of the milestones.

LightSwitch applications can easily connect to SharePoint 2010 data sources.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

TOY

CO

MPA

nY

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 25

Shanae got the designers and engineers to work, pronto.

And Boris was also alerted by email about the issue

automatically—Boris had added some custom code to

send an email alert whenever a new issue was entered

into AmazeApp. The packaging would have to be modified

to accommodate the new design changes.

Total time to get AmazeApp up and running? 2.5 hours.

Three days after he came up with the idea, Boris is

ready to show AmazeApp to the team. It lived up to its

name—it was pretty much what they needed to get

their game on the shelves, without being too fancy or

cumbersome. It just worked.

And then, Tailspin got word that they didn’t pass one of

the critical steps in the testing process. One of the edges

on the toy was deemed too sharp, and they’d have to

modify the shape to reduce their risk.

Of course, no one wants to release a potentially dangerous toy.

Code to send email notifications.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

TOY

CO

MPA

nY

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 26

The issue was resolved quickly, since everyone was alerted right

away and it got prioritized in the issues list. The toy was safe

and the project back on schedule.

Amazeballs hit the shelves just after Thanksgiving, beating

the business-critical holiday deadline. It was a huge success—

parents and kids loved it—but even more important to Boris,

his AmazeApp solution caught the eye of other project

managers at Tailspin.

Seeing the new guy pull off a launch within 18 weeks of

starting was impressive, and other groups wanted to get

their own AmazeApps. Boris didn’t have the bandwidth (or

the interest, frankly) to work on every product launch, so

he handed it off to the IT/Engineering department to tweak

it as needed.

No problem.

The IT department regularly used Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate,

and opened up the LightSwitch application without a problem.

Since it was built on sound architecture, they didn’t have

any clean-up work to do. Instead, they were able to tweak

it using the tools they were more comfortable with, while

using more advanced tooling and code to tailor the solution

for other groups.

USE

SC

EnA

RIO

//

TOY

CO

MPA

nY

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 27

Within a couple of months, several teams were communicating better and getting more done each day—all because Boris raised his hand, skipped a couple of meetings, and spent a few hours solving a problem.

THE FInAL LIGHTSWITCH SOLUTIOn

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 28

Maintaining a high: Making sure people get their buzz by keeping espresso machines running smoothly.

USE

SCE

nA

RIO

//

REST

AU

RAn

T M

AIn

TEn

An

CE

Now that the country is hooked on coffee, technology is

making it even easier to get the fix we need in the morning.

Espresso machines are smarter than ever, and they need

constant attention to perform consistently. That takes some

serious upkeep to dial in the perfect pull.

Enter Contoso, a subsidiary of a national restaurant

maintenance company, which focuses on keeping cafe

equipment finely tuned. They just landed a HUGE

regional account with Fourth Coffee and are now in

charge of keeping all the chain’s 284 locations in the

Pacific Northwest running smoothly.

It’s a great contract with an opportunity to expand

into other regions. And Gianna is in charge of ensuring

it all runs smoothly.

COMPANY:Contoso

INDUSTRY:Restaurant Maintenance

COMPANY SIZE:260

ISSUE:Field management

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 29

Gianna is the customer service manager for the area

and has 29 field reps at her disposal to handle the

new account. Fourth Coffee is incredibly particular

about their needs, so while the field reps are at a

weeklong training seminar, she needs to come

up with a plan to manage both the ongoing

maintenance and day-to-day issues that

might come up.

From handling smaller accounts, she’s already used

to Contoso’s internal resource management tool to

make sure she has a tech servicing her clients. The

application was pretty good about managing the

technician locations and service requests, but trying

to scale it brings up some challenges.

Her current solution is falling short in a number

of ways:

+ There’s no way to easily plan and manage

multiple client visits by geography.

+ Each location’s maintenance needs vary based

on customer traffic. Busier shops require more

frequent visits—some demand 2 visits or more

a week. This frequency is much higher than their

typical restaurant contracts.

+ The contract outlined very specific service-level

agreements, and Contoso has committed to a

2-hour or less response time to emergencies.

+ Contoso is new to this size contract, so

management is asking for detailed

analytics about how the field team is

performing to ensure they’re profitable.

She’s determined to impress her boss and prove that Contoso can handle the Fourth Coffee account—and do it efficiently.

USE

SCE

nA

RIO

// R

ESTA

URA

nT

MA

InTE

nA

nCE

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 30

All in all, this job is going to require more data and

analysis—and more quick-changes in the field than

Contoso is set up to handle.

Gianna is going to need more than her smarts to

keep tabs on incoming service requests, regularly

scheduled maintenance, and the technicians

working in the field.

She taps her go-to IT guy, Stefan, and asks how he can

help. After outlining her situation for a half hour, he

realizes that he can’t just tweak the current management

tools in place—they’re going to need something special

for Fourth Coffee, but it’ll have to tie in to some of the

current databases already set up.

Stef promises to do some research, and as soon as he

hears about LightSwitch, he knows he’s found an answer.

LightSwitch is the perfect tool to get something up and

running in less than a week, plus it can tap into in-house

databases, and be used on the netbooks that technicians

already have.

He downloads and installs LightSwitch in 15 minutes,

then gets to work on a quick prototype of the application

he thinks will work for Gianna.

First, he picks up the existing resource-management

application, along with the database that hosts the

technician information, service requests, and GPS

technician transponder data. After he creates a new

LightSwitch application, he connects it to the existing

data on their in-house SQL Server.

The “old” in-house application will still be up and running

for the rest of the company. Stefan’s new application for

Gianna will simply piggyback onto its database, pick up

the GPS coordinates from the transponder data, and add

some layers of customization that Gianna needs.

USE

SCE

nA

RIO

// R

ESTA

URA

nT

MA

InTE

nA

nCE

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 31

Fourth Coffee is growing like mad in the region.

They’re scheduled to open another 20–30 stores by the end

of the quarter. Instead of asking Gianna to enter all the store

information manually (which would be tedious and more

prone to error), Stefan decides to tap into Fourth Coffee’s

store locator database.

The database is accessible on Fourth Coffee’s website, so

he uses WCF RIA Services to draw the data into the application.

Once he reviews the store information, he’s psyched to see that

the data includes store numbers, as well as phone numbers and

addresses. Service requests will be submitted by store number,

and it seems silly to ask the store managers to enter their physical

location every time.

By connecting the two databases in his LightSwitch

application, he can attach address information to

incoming service requests automatically. Stefan

writes a query that will pull in the address and phone

numbers and attach it to the service request.

Gianna wants to be able to easily assign the closest

technician to incoming emergency requests.

The best way to do it? A map overlay.

Attaching to a WCF RIA Service lets you pull in data from a web source.

A simple query will automatically attach addresses and phone numbers to each service request.

USE

SCE

nA

RIO

// R

ESTA

URA

nT

MA

InTE

nA

nCE

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 32

He’s in luck. After searching the Extension Manager,

Stefan finds a Bing extension ready to go. He downloads it

and activates it for this project. It’s perfect—not only is his

map problem solved, Gianna can use it for estimating travel

time between locations as well.

The stores are easy to map. It’s just another query to write.

The program also needs to use GPS information from

transponders in the service trucks. Since this is already

being handled with the core on-premises app, it’s another

quick query to pull up the GPS locations. He uses the query

designer and a bit of code to tie the GPS results to the Bing

Map extension.

Another query is added to retrieve GPS data.

And a little more code is needed to pull it all together.

A real-time visualization brings together multiple data sources, making it easy for the end user to understand.

Gianna now has a real-time visualization for which

techs are closest to which stores. To dispatch a technician

to a location with an emergency, she can simply assign them

the service request and let them know the old-fashioned

way…with a phone call.

The technicians, on the other hand, are going to need

to know each morning where they’re scheduled to be.

They’re all equipped with laptops in the field, so it’s just

a matter of creating personalized to-do lists for them.

USE

SCE

nA

RIO

// R

ESTA

URA

nT

MA

InTE

nA

nCE

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 33

He creates a technician dashboard, and adds some simple user/

password authentication that will deliver a personalized task list. Since

Gianna is stressing out about the level of reporting she’ll need to do,

Stefan adds a layer of functionality that will keep an eye on technicians.

For each service request he creates a button, “Task Complete,” which

then submits the task done, complete with a time stamp.

The Task Complete button also prompts the screen to

refresh, showing him the next assignment on his to-do list.

The technician can see where he’s headed next and how

long it’ll take to get there.

Bonus? Since the technicians will know Gianna has the same

information, they can’t dilly-dally between service calls. This will

definitely improve efficiencies across the field.

A couple more things and the application will be ready to go.

Gianna will need to slice and dice the data a few different ways, especially

early on when she’s trying to figure out what the client will want.

Stefan figures that she’s savvy enough in Excel to manipulate the

numbers, so he adds a button to Gianna’s dashboard. There’s a

built-in function for exporting to Excel, so it only takes a second.

It’s the first thing she’ll click in the morning when she comes in.

After some testing and final tweaking, it’s on to deployment. Stefan

simply publishes the application to existing Contoso servers.

He sends the link to Gianna so she can install it on her machine

and play around with it. Within a half hour, she discovers that

it does everything she asked for—and more. (Stefan is

SO getting a six-pack for his great work.)

A Task Complete button is added to keep the real-time status accurate and up to date.

Users can quickly export application data to Excel, where they can slice and dice it in any way they’d like.

Each technician can pull up a personal to-do list.

USE

SCE

nA

RIO

// R

ESTA

URA

nT

MA

InTE

nA

nCE

LIGHTSWITCH In ACTIOn P 34

And it’s just in time, too. It’s the day before the technician

training is finished, and she arranges to take over their lunch

hour. She shows up with pizza, and walks the technicians

through the new program.

Within 30 minutes, they’ve all got the hang of it. It’s

super-intuitive and a huge improvement over the intranet

they’d been using to access service requests in the past.

Plus, they appreciate how proactive the company—and

especially Gianna—has been in on-boarding the new client.

A few months later, Gianna has clearly shown big savings, in both money and time, to her boss. Fourth Coffee is thrilled with the level of service they’re getting. And Contoso is ready for the next big client who’ll need fast response times.

THE FInAL LIGHTSWITCH SOLUTIOn

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > TOP FEATURES P 35

You can build business applications fast.

With LightSwitch, you can create custom applications that

rival off-the-shelf solutions. And no, you don’t have to be

a hard-core developer.

By fast, we’re talking hours or days…not months.

You get a head start with built-in, pre-configured screen templates

that give your application a familiar look and feel. All you have

to do is define the data sources and screens, while LightSwitch

handles the behind-the-scenes plumbing.

LightSwitch gives you what you might call “a kit of parts.” The

LightSwitch runtime manages most of the core functionality

you need for routine application tasks like input validation, screen

rendering, and exporting to Excel. Plus, you get easy tools that

help you through the process of building your solution.

It’s all about data and screens. (Again, build it fast and move on.)

When you’re building a LightSwitch application, you can attach

it to existing data sources, including Microsoft SQL ServerTM,

Microsoft SQL AzureTM, and third-party databases.

Wizards will walk you through designing screens that relay the

information to end users. You get to define buttons, actions,

personalized dashboards…all that good stuff.

To make it all look professional, you can pull down themes that

will skin your application to suit the style of your business. (Or

design your own for a fully branded experience.)

Since you don’t want to force users out of their comfort zone,

you can always flip the data back into their hands by exporting it

to Microsoft Office Excel for reporting and sharing. This lets your

users slice and dice the data to make it work best for them, while

wrangling some key business demands of getting the job done.

The best things about Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011

TOP

FEA

TURE

S

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > TOP FEATURES P 36

Tweak it to meet your business logic. If you’re savvy on writing custom code, go for it! Use Visual Basic or

Visual C# to tweak your application.

LightSwitch was designed for people who aren’t afraid of writing code

occasionally (or doing a search online to find a solution). When you’re

starting an application from scratch, just pick between Visual Basic and

Visual C#—whichever you prefer.

Deploy to the desktop, Web, or cloud. Easy-peasy.

You can deploy to the desktop, browser, or cloud to get your application

out there. No tedious installation process.

LightSwitch includes a Publishing Wizard that helps you package and deploy

your finished LightSwitch application. You can easily publish your app the

way it best suits your needs:

+ A stand-alone desktop application

+ A desktop application connected to a back-end service on Windows

Server or Windows Azure

+ A browser-based Web application hosted on Windows Server or Windows Azure

During this final step, you’ll be able to specify where your custom

data resides—in a local database, an existing SQL Server, or on SQL

Azure. No more worrying about what to do when you’ve finished

your app. It’s a snap to get it into the hands of your users.

They’ll love it. Let it grow. A great LightSwitch application is designed to solve a unique,

practical business need. Once people see it, they’ll be inspired to

extend it to meet their needs. LightSwitch gives you awesome

capabilities to let the core application flourish and thrive.

While it’s hard to let go sometimes, we understand that other

people—including professional developers—might want to pick up

your application and extend it. Could be for future, unpredictable

needs, or it could be that you’ve started solving a bigger business

need that would be valued in other parts of your company.

LightSwitch was designed to be scalable, and can be picked up by

any Visual Studio developer to further customize it. Or you can tap

into our partner network and pick up extensions that we didn’t think

of yet, including templates, data sources, shells, themes, business

data types, and custom controls.

TOP

FEA

TURE

S

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > PRODUCT COMPARISOn P 37

PRO

DU

CT

CO

MPA

RISO

N

When is LightSwitch the right fit? If you’ve made it this far through this guide,

you’ll now know that LightSwitch is perfect for

quickly developing business applications that

are essentially data and screens with a touch

of custom code. And since LightSwitch applications

are built upon best-practices architecture, they can

always scale up to get hardcore customizations using

Visual Studio Professional and above.

But there are certainly cases when you’ll want to

start from scratch in Visual Studio Professional.

LightSwitch isn’t the right tool, for example, for

making Web sites, video games, Windows Phone

apps, or add-ins for Office applications. It IS

well-designed for savvy information workers, IT pros,

and anyone who is ready to take on building an

application without getting a CS degree.

Use this chart to double-check if you should power

up LightSwitch or Visual Studio Professional to bring

your next idea to life.

LIGHTSWITCH VS. VISUAL STUDIO PROFESSIOnAL

Visual Studio LightSwitch

Visual Studio Professional

LightSwitch Runtime Yes Yes1

Visual Studio Project System Yes Yes

IntelliSense Yes Yes

Team Explorer (Team Foundation Server integration)

Yes2 Yes2

LIGHTSWITCH APPLICATIOn DEVELOPMEnT

Predefined Screen Templates Yes Yes1

Application Skinning and Theming Yes Yes1

Data Entity Designer Yes Yes1

Business-oriented Data Types (e.g. EmailAddress, PhoneNumber, etc)

Yes Yes1

Automatic Data Input Validation Yes Yes1

Windows Azure Deployment Yes Yes1

SQL Azure Support Yes Yes

LAnGUAGES, EDITORS, & COMPILERS

Visual Studio LightSwitch

Visual Studio Professional

Visual Basic Yes Yes

Visual C# Yes Yes

Visual C++ – Yes

Visual F# – Yes

HTML/JavaScript – Yes

Silverlight/XAML Editor – Yes

PROJECT TYPES

LightSwitch Application Yes Yes1

ASP.NET – Yes

ASP.NET AJAX – Yes

ASP.NET MVC – Yes

Console Application – Yes

Database Projects – Yes

Office Applications & Add-ins – Yes

Setup Projects – Yes

SharePoint Applications & WebParts – Yes

Test Projects – Yes

Visual Studio Add-ins – Yes

Windows Forms – Yes

Windows Phone – Yes

WCF – Yes

WPF – Yes

XNA Games – Yes

PRO

DU

CT

CO

MPA

RISO

N

1 For LightSwitch application development, requires Visual Studio

LightSwitch and Visual Studio Professional to both be installed.

2 Requires a Team Foundation Server Client Access License (CAL).

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > PRODUCT COMPARISOn P 38

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > SYSTEM REQUIREMEnTS P 39

System Requirements for Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011

Supported Operating Systems:

Windows® 7; Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-Bit x86); Windows Server 2003 R2

x64 editions; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2008 R2;

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2; Windows VistaTM Service Pack 2;

Windows XP Service Pack 3

+ Windows XP (x86) with Service Pack 3 – all editions except Starter Edition

+ Windows Vista (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2 – all editions except

Starter Edition

+ Windows 7 (x86 and x64)

+ Windows Server 2003 (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2 – all editions

• Users will need to install MSXML6 if not already present

+ Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64) – all editions

+ Windows Server 2008 (x86 and x64) with Service Pack 2 – all editions

+ Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) – all editions

Supported Architectures:

+ 32-Bit (x86)

+ 64-Bit (x64) (WOW)

Hardware Requirements:

+ Computer with a 1.6GHz or faster processor

+ 1024 MB RAM (1.5 GB if running in a virtual machine)

+ 3 GB of available hard-disk space

+ 5400 RPM hard drive

+ DirectX 9 capable video card running at 1024 x 768 (or higher)

resolution display

SYST

EM R

EQU

IREM

ENTS

MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO LIGHTSWITCH 2011 > GETTInG STARTED P 40

It’s easy to get going with LightSwitch. Download the program, install it,

and start solving problems!

Here’s how to get the bits you need.

1. Download a trial version Confirm that your machine meets the System Requirements on page 39,

then go to http://www.microsoft.com/lightswitch to download the

Free Trial version of LightSwitch. You can start building your solution and

see if it’s a right fit for your needs.

2. Buy the full version Within the LightSwitch Trial Version, you can go to Help > Register

Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 to enter purchasing information and

get a registration code.

3. Get training, help, and more While LightSwitch is intuitive and easy to use, you’ll probably need a little

help with customizing your first application. There are tons of resources out

there to guide you. Below are some of our current getting-started favorites.

Training: http://msdn.microsoft.com/lightswitch

Custom code: http://bit.ly/LightSwitchSamples

Extensions: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com

Ready to go? Give it a try.

GET

TIN

G S

TART

ED


Recommended