Question

The SOAP web service API for SharePoint is documented by Microsoft, however there is no explicit mention of BPOS / Office 365 / Microsoft’s cloud offering. Google isn’t helping much, so I thought I’d ask here:

1. Is there any documentation on consuming Web Services hosted in Microsoft’s cloud?

2. Are there any differences in authentication or using web services from a non-cloud SharePoint installation compared with a cloud solution? I’m particularly interested in authentication and how the cloud integrates with an Enterpris’s existing authentication infrastructure?

3. Does the Authentication class of the Web Service API abstract away all authentication details and therefore the web service client should have no concern about how authentication is actually achieved (it just sends a username, password and checks the LoginResult returned from the web service)?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there is no easy way. And no way documented by Microsoft.
Look here for someone who did it and share his code:
http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/How-to-do-active-authentication-to-Office-365-and-SharePoint-Online.aspx

Basically, here is what it does:

• Get login url
• Post the form
• Get the cookie from SPO
• Insert it in every call you make