Transcript Slide 1

Introducing Business
Connectivity Services
Brett Lonsdale
About Me
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Email: [email protected]
Web: www.lightningtools.com
Web: www.sharepointpodshow.com
Blog: www.brettlonsdale.com
Twitter: @brettlonsdale
Agenda
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Problems Solved by BCS
Overview of BCS
What’s new?
Server Capabilities
Client Capabilities
External Lists in Detail
Tooling
Demonstration
Problems solved by BCS
• Islands of data into 1 application
IT
Human
Resources
Finance
Extranet
Collaboration
Site
Weekly Issue
Tracking
Meeting
Overview of BCS
Office
SharePoint
SPD
VS
SharePoint
Workspace
BDC Client
Runtime
InfoPath
Word
BDC Cache
CRM
Outlook
Offline
Operations
SAP
External
Lists
Enterprise
Search
ECT
BDC
Runtime
Siebel
External
Bus field
Type
Web Parts
User
Profiles
Security
Solution
Packaging
Out of
the Box
UI
LOB
What’s new?
• Entities become External Content Types
– Now more than just a schema
– ECT’s describe behavior
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WCF and .NET Assembly Shims
External Lists
Client Runtime
Read/Write
Access consumes BCS
Tools
Terminology
• Enterprise Content Type – Table/View etc
• Finder Method – Returns multiple
columns/rows
• Specific Finder – Displays a row
• IDEnumerator – Used by the Enterprise Search
to enumerate the rows
• Action – URL and Parameters
• Association – Join (Relationship)
Server Capabilities
• External Lists
– Backend data presented in a SharePoint style list
• InfoPath and Web Forms for Updating | Inserting data
• Business Data Web Parts
– Now Ajaxian
– Really only here for backwards compatibility
• External Data Column
– Use LOB data in Lists & Libraries
• Workflow
• Search
Client Capabilities
• SharePoint Workspace
• Outlook
• Office Business Parts (OBPs)
– List of Items
– Single Item
• Word
• Access
• VSTO
External Lists
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Create, Read, Update Delete operations
Sort/Filter
Standard and Customizable Views
Manipulation via the SPList OM
Portable Across Sites
Extend with InfoPath Forms, Custom Columns,
SPList
• No Datasheet view or RSS Feeds
• Item Level permissions on External Data
• Alerts
Tools
• SharePoint Designer
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No code solution
Create External Content Types
Configure the connection to the Datasource
Define Methods
Simple Associations
• Visual Studio
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Code solution
Mashups of Datasources
Complex Associations
Output a .NET Assembly
Lightning Strikes Twice! BCS Meta Man 
Demonstration
• Use SharePoint Designer to connect to a Line
of Business system
• Create and use an External List
• Take data offline using Outlook and SharePoint
Workspace
• Using the External Data Column
Q&A