arizona sharepoint professionals group thomas baer senior consultant, statêra

http://www.azsharepointpros.com

BUSINESS DATA CATALOG OVERVIEW

Arizona SharePoint Professionals Group

Thomas BaerSenior Consultant, Statê[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


What is the business data catalog?

Surface data from back-end server applications with out any code

Metadata Model Describe the API of the business application

Applications registered by administrators


Why The Business Data Catalog?

Integrate other systems with SharePoint sites

Reporting dashboards Line of business applications

Integrate Business Data Catalog data into hybrid Windows Forms Applications

Search for data in other systems via the SharePoint Search service

Save the time, cost, and monotony of writing yet another data layer!


Typical Projects

Surface existing back end data in out-of-the-box Web parts

INTERMEDIATE ADVANCEDSIMPLE

Index data to make it searchable

Use columns

Create dashboards

Use custom code to integrate data inside

other applications


Overview of Components

Metadata

Business Data Catalog

Web Parts Lists Search User

ProfilesCustom Apps

Database

WS Proxy ADO.NET

Web Service

SQL Server, Oracle, OLEDB, ODBC

BizTalk Server, SAP, Siebel, Legacy, …

List store

SearchIndex

Profile Store


HOW DOES ONE CONNECT AN APPLICATION TO THE BDC?


DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLEWRITE METADATA, NOT CODE

1. Analyst defines business requirements

2. IT Pro / developer writes and tests application definition (metadata)

3. IT Pro uploads application definition 4. Analyst builds solution using

business data features


Every MetadataObject has a Properties collectionBusiness Data Features make use of certain annotationsYou can extend the metadata for your own applications

Application DefinitionsProperties

<Entity Name=“Customer”> <Properties> <Property Name=“Title”>CustomerName</Property> </Properties> ...</Entity>


One method of an entity is designated the Finder, another the SpecificFinderFinder returns a collection of instances given a set of filtersSpecificFinder returns a single instance given a key

Application DefinitionsFinder Methods

<Entity Name=“Customer”> <Methods> <Method Name=“GetCustomer”> <MethodInstance Type=“Finder” ... /> ... </Method> </Methods></Entity>


Control the data finders returnAnnotations on a Method’s input parametersDeclare which inputs users can overrideVarious types: wildcard, exact match, …System filters allow BDC to securely set values, e.g., user token

Application DefinitionsFilters

<Method Name=“GetCustomer”> <FilterDescriptors> <FilterDescriptor Name=“Region” Type=“ExactMatch”/> </FilterDescriptors> <Parameters> <Parameter Name=“Region” Direction=“In”> <TypeDescriptor ... AssociatedFilter=“Region”/> ...</Method>


Model relationships between entitiesHas one or more source entities and one destination entityIs a method instanceTakes source instance(s) and returns a destination instance

Application DefinitionsAssociations

<Association Name=“CustomerToOrder“

AssociationMethodName=“GetOrdersByCustomer“> <SourceEntity Name=“Customer"/> <DestinationEntity Name=“Order"/></Association>


Full-text search any applicationBDC crawl protocol has two phases

ID Enumeration: Fetch all entity instance IDsDetail fetch: Fetch details for each instance

IDEnumerator returns the IDsSpecificFinder returns the details

Application DefinitionsIDEnumerators And Search

<Method Name=“GetCustomerIDs”> <Parameters> ... </Parameters> <MethodInstance Type=“IDEnumerator” ... /></Method>


Link, don’t replicateScenarios so far are read-only

Where should business logic reside?For writes, link to existing app UI, web forms, etc.Actions are links that travel everywhere with an entityUsers can take action in context

Application DefinitionsActions

<Entity> <Actions> <Action Name=“Edit” Url=“http://customerweb/edit.aspx”/> </Actions></Entity>


Use custom actions to take users to:Server-side InfoPath formsCustom ASP.NET pagesThe LOB vendor’s own Web interfaceBack to the business logic question

Logic probably already resides somewhere why duplicate

What About Write-back?

arizona sharepoint professionals group thomas baer senior consultant, statêra

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