Reverse engineer a desktop client/server application. (.NET/ClickOnce/SOAP)

We have an application that our employees use to work. We wish to automate the work that they do without having to interface with the client. This is why we are looking to reverse engineer this application, we want to know whether we can create applications that interface directly with the server. Essentially we would develop a second client without a GUI and interactable through an API or CLI. The current method we are going for, is to find out what the client/server communcation protocol is, so we can start sending our own messages for the features we want to automate. You will not be writing code, you will be helping us reverse engineer the application and help us build a business plan so that other developers can build an automated client. What we know so far: We have decompiled code for the client application. The client and the server are in .NET The client probably uses ASP.NET The client and server communicate through https The client uses ClickOnce to deploy. The client uses SOAP for initializing the application and authenthication. The client might use Google's protocol buffers or SOAP for the messages we wish to automate. We managed to get the encrypted messages we wish to automate through wireshark. We have managed to get the decrypted messages for initializing the application through Telerik Fiddler, but haven't managed to capture messages for authorization or messages for features we wish to automate. What we are looking for a combination of the following, do not get discouraged if you miss some.: Experience in .net Experience with ClickOnce Experience with reverse engineering SOA apps Proactivity and ideas on how to help us achieve our bottom line objective. Experience with Protocol buffers. Good communicational skills. Please write a short writeup about either your relevant experience or your suggested approach for our project. If we are interested we will proceed outright with billable skype sessions and begin working!