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The Microsoft Office Live team has created the Inn Manager sample solution, designed to manage reservation requests online for an inn or bed-and-breakfast, and to show Office Live solution developers how easy it is to deploy a custom solution. The Microsoft Office Live Sample Solution: Inn Manager sample is now available on the MSDN download center. The download includes a pre-built Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 template (.stp) and a Microsoft Office Word document (.doc) with instructions that show how you can:

·         Easily add a custom business application based on this template to your Microsoft Office Live subscription.

·         Quickly create pages on your public Web site that interact with this business application.

The Inn Manager solution includes a template for the custom business application, Inn Manager. You can add this application to any Office Live Premium or Office Live Essentials subscription. The template includes sample data, such as package offers, for the fictional Northwind Inn.

As you follow the steps in the instructions, learn how to:

• Upload the Inn Manager template to an Office Live subscription.
• Add an Inn Manager custom business application based on the template.
• Add a page to a public Web site to display the Northwind Inn vacation package information that is stored in the Inn Manager application.
• Add a page to a public Web site to collect reservation requests for the Inn Manager application.
• Create SharePoint Services workflows that automatically create a reservation when a reservation request is approved and add it to the reservation calendar.

Public Web page collecting data for the Inn Manager custom business application

This is just one example of the type of services you can add to your client’s Office Live Premium or Office Live Essentials subscription. Web design tools provided by Office Live, in combination with features of Windows SharePoint Services offered through Microsoft SharePoint Designer, help you deploy an impressive custom solution with minimal effort.

To view a screencast of a demonstration of an expanded version of the Inn Manager sample solution, see Microsoft Office Live Tour for Developers: Northwind Inn.

The Office Live Developer Platform team