Web Forms

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Web Forms

This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

Exchange Web forms is a Web-based forms technology that is built on Internet standards. An Exchange Web form is a Web page that is registered in the form registry of the Exchange store. Registering a form in the form registry allows ASP and HTML pages to be associated with a specific type of data in the Exchange store and to replace the default Microsoft® Outlook® Web Access rendering when an HTTP request for the data is made.

The registration entry in the form registry specifies the rendering engine for the form. This makes it possible to override the default Outlook Web Access rendering and invoke a custom ASP script and HTML, which allows you to provide the presentation and data content that your application requires.

The registration itself is a single record in the Exchange store. Each registration entry contains a set of properties for the item or folder that the request is made against and for the user's browser and environment. The form registration properties include a property, the executeurl, that specifies the URL of the engine that renders the form and another, the formurl, that lists the name of the Exchange store or ASP file that displays the Web page. Form Definition Properties describes the collection of form definition properties for a form registration.

Exchange Web forms can be rendered by two different engines. Exchange provides the form renderer, an Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) DLL extension named exwforms.dll, or you can write an ASP script and use it to render the Web form. An ASP script or an HTML file can provide the markup language that renders the Web form. The form renderer can process both file types, and you can use the language and technology that best suits your needs. Using the ASP technology offers the advantage of support for data validation and other business logic.

For more information about the concepts and architecture of Exchange Web forms, see the following sections:

Overview of Exchange Web Forms

Exchange Web Form Registration

For more information about the programming tasks associated with building Exchange Web forms, see the following section:

Registering an Exchange Web Form

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This topic last updated: March 2005

Build: June 2007 (2007.618.1)

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