SharePoint 2010: BCS

http://microsoftsharepointandbeyond.blogspot.com

Business Connectivity Services

What’s new in Business

Connectivity Services

Frank CleynenECM Consultant

Getronics

Agenda

•Customer feedback

•What is BCS?

•Demo

•External data in SharePoint

Feedback

•Read/WriteRead is nice ... but writing would be even nicer

•Tooling supportWe need an easier way to create, debug and maintain application definition XML files

•I wish it was all part of the system

•Why not work offline as well ?

Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Microsoft SharePoint 2010Enabling no-code collaborative

solutions that balance self-service control

Investment Areas

Challenges with back end data

Challenges with back end data

Business Connectivity

Services

Architecture

External Content Types (ECT)

• = the BCS building block

• Superset of entity capabilities; describes:- Structure of the external system- How this data behaves in SharePoint and Office

• Manage and reuse from a central location

• Added to the BCS through:- SPD 2010- VS 2010- Part of a model

External Content Types (ECT)

• BCS-enabled solutions rely on ECTs to integrate external data into SharePoint and the Office client applications

• Can be reused in- External list - Word- Search - InfoPath- Outlook - Access- SharePoint Workspace - MS Office(code)

BCS Overview

DEMO

External lists

•Expose external data as a native SharePoint list- Full CRUD capability- Familiar UI and navigation- Sort, filter, group- SPList OM access- Forms: OOTB or upsize with InfoPath- Work offline

External vs. Regular list

•Key differences:- No default fields: title, created (by), modified (by)- List items don’t have unique int32 ID- No events- Item level security on external source- Read/Write depends on external source- Data stored in external system

External vs. Regular list

•Not supported- RSS- Edit in datasheet/grid view- Export to Excel- REST interface- No workflows can be associated

Working offline

•Connect to Outlook as- Contacts- Tasks- Calendar- Posts

•Download to SharePoint Workspace

Visual Studio integration

•New Project template: Business Data Connectivity Model

•Create reusable BCS components

•Visual designers

•Creates ECT of type ‘.NET assembly’

•Upsize IT solutions created in SPD 2010

Solution types

Lifecycle Management

•Part of WSP-based SharePoint application packaging, deployment and administration

What’s in the box

Recap

•CRUD

•Complete integration

•Easy creation, development and maintenance

Q&A

http://microsoftsharepointandbeyond.blogspot.c

om

Thanks and good evening!!