The HotDocs Open SDK is a toolkit designed to ease integration between 3rd party applications and HotDocs. It is implemented in C# and can be utilized by any managed (.NET) application to simplify communication with HotDocs Cloud Services and/or HotDocs Server. The SDK is comprised of several components that can be used together or (when it makes sense) individually:

• HotDocs.Sdk - This managed DLL helps with parsing and/or creating various XML-based data files necessary for deep HotDocs integrations. For example, you can easily create and parse HotDocs XML answer collections. It also exposes methods for parsing and using template and package manifests, as well as code to extract files from template packages. Compatible with .NET 2.0 and later.

• HotDocs.Sdk.Cloud - This managed DLL (also known as the Cloud Services Client Library) simplifies communication with the web services interfaces exposed by HotDocs Cloud Services. It exposes both the "Embedded" and "Direct" methods of integrating HotDocs browser interviews into your web application, and encapsulates such details as proper error handling. Compatible with .NET 2.0 and later.

• HotDocs.Sdk.Server - This managed DLL allows applications to transparently integrate with either HotDocs Cloud Services (running in the cloud) or HotDocs Server (running on the same machine or remotely via web services). It provides an abstraction layer that hides many of the differences between those APIs. It also includes a WorkSession class that greatly simplifies implementation of basic HotDocs workflows (a.k.a. assembly queues). Compatible with .NET 4.0 and later.

• HotDocs.Sdk.Server.Contracts - This small managed DLL contains shared data types and some protocols/algorithms necessary for proper communication between client code and HotDocs-provided web services. This includes e.g. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) contracts for data types and services, and the standard HMAC algorithm necessary to call Cloud Services. Note: this project is included for informational and compatibility reasons. Changes to code in this module are not expected. Compatible with .NET 2.0 and later.

• HotDocs.Sdk.DataServices - This managed DLL implements an OData data service facilitating the new Answer Source capabilities in HotDocs 11 browser interviews. On their own, browser interviews can display answer sources based on the "current" answer file only; however, host applications incorporating this DLL can also deliver data from server-side answer files. This DLL also provides a pattern to follow in implementing custom server-side answer sources. Compatible with .NET 4.0 and later.

• SamplePortal - This is a sample ASP.NET (Web Forms) application that illustrates how to use the HotDocs.Sdk.Server abstraction layer for communicating transparently with HotDocs Server and Cloud Services.

Documentation still needs to be added to the project wiki, but in the meantime please refer to the following sources of information:

• The auto-generated documentation built from the XML comments in the code.
• The SamplePortal project that is part of this code. This illustrates using HotDocs.Sdk.Server as an abstraction layer for talking to either HotDocs Server or Cloud Services.
• The HotDocs Embedded tutorials, which illustrate how to easily embed HotDocs Cloud Services interviews & document assembly in a web page.

In order to take advantage of this project, you should either have a valid subscriber ID for HotDocs Cloud Services or have access to a licensed installation of HotDocs Server. You must also have the ability to write and compile ASP.NET web applications.

The Cloud Services Client Library has been ported to other languages and platforms to facilitate HotDocs integration from those platforms:

• Java
• PHP (HotDocs Embedded API only)
• Ruby (maintained by pifleo)

See the Cloud Services Client Libraries wiki page for more information on the implementations in these languages..

We welcome pull requests from potential contributors. If you think of a great way to improve HotDocs integration with another application, we're all ears. Or if you are interested in helping port this SDK (or any portion of it) onto any other platform or language, please let us know!