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
+ 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