Before we start, it is important to understand what is and isn't a composite application. The first few sections in this chapter introduce you to composite applications, explaining their background and the key underlying concepts. Studying these sections will allow you to determine if your particular problem should be solved by creating a composite application, or if another approach would be more appropriate.

Assuming that a composite application fits your needs, we then explore the approach you should apply to build one. There are some best practices that you should apply, and pitfalls that you will want to avoid. I have created a checklist of questions to ask to make this easier.

The second half of this chapter presents three simple composite applications covering:

Each application is designed to illustrate a few key concepts that you should consider applying when building your own applications. For each application, I first outline the business problem to be solved, describe the composite application solution, provide some high-level instructions on how to build it, discuss how it works, and highlight the key learning points. These applications aren't intended to be comprehensive solutions. There isn't enough space to detail step-by-step how to build each application (that would require another book in itself). Think of each application as a starting point that you may extend to solve your own particular business problem. However, the information that you need has already been covered in the recipes previously presented in the book. Each composite application contains a list of the recipes that you should reference to help you.

At the end of the chapter you will find my closing thoughts, summarizing what we have learnt so far, along with some advice on how to continue your SharePoint Power User journey.