Modules
Commerce Server Business Desk modules are what provide the user interfaces that are used to accomplish actual, specific work within Business Desk. Though quite a few Business Desk modules ship with Microsoft Commerce Server 2000, undoubtedly the need for new modules will arise. How to build and integrate such new modules with the existing modules is the subject of this section.
A Business Desk module consists of the following:
A set of related ASP pages, including any private utility pages, that present a user interface for managing a particular type of business data. The module also includes any additional, pure-processing ASP pages that support the presented user interface. With the exception of the utility pages, typically included in pages of the other types, these pages are known as action pages.
Information about how and where the module should integrate into Business Desk relative to the existing categories and modules. This information is contained in the module configuration file, or potentially in more than one such file.
Information about how Business Desk should manage navigation between the ASP pages comprising the module, expressed in terms of tasks, and possibly including some icon files for display on task buttons specific to that module.
Optionally, and recommended, help files specific to action pages in the module.