How to Configure Business Data Connectivity Service SharePoint 2013In this article we learn how to configure a Business Data Connectivity Service in SharePoint 2013. Business Connectivity Services (BCS) was introduced in SharePoint Server 2010 as an evolution of the Business Data Catalog released in Office SharePoint Server 2007. BCS enables SharePoint 2013 to work with data that is hosted externally. Possible sources can include databases, web services, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, Open Data Protocol (OData) sources, and other proprietary data that is accessed by using custom .NET assemblies.

With BCS, you can bring information into SharePoint from a variety sources. For example, you can bring data from an external SQL Server database, a traditional web service, a WCF service, proprietary systems, and OData services.To start the Business Data Connectivity service:

1. Open the SharePoint Central Administration website for the server farm that contains your BCS solution.

2. On the Quick Launch, click System Settings.3. On the System Settings page, under Servers, click "Manage services on server".

 4. Check the value in the Server field. If the server name shown there is not the

server that you want to run the Business Data Connectivity Service, click on the down arrow, click Change Server and select the correct server.

5. If necessary, next to Business Data Connectivity Service, under the Action column, click Start.

Create a new Business Data Connectivity Services service application

1. Open the SharePoint Central Administration website for your farm with a Farm administrator account. This must be the farm in which you started the Business Data Connectivity Service in the Start the Business Data Connectivity service for a Business Connectivity Services on-premises solution in SharePoint 2013 procedure.

2. On the Quick start, click "Application Management".3. On the Application Management page under Service Applications, click "Manage

service applications".

 4. If an instance of the Business Data Connectivity Service Application that you will

use for this solution is already there, you can skip the rest of this procedure. If not, follow the rest of this procedure to create one.

5. On the "SERVICE APPLICATIONS" tab, click "New" and click "Business Data Connectivity Service".

 6. Configure the setting in the Create New Business Data Connectivity Service

Application configuration page as follows:7. In the Service Application Name box enter the name you want the service to

appear as on the Manage Service Applications page. This BCS service application can be used by multiple BCS solutions.

8. In the Database area, leave the pre-populated values for Database Server, Database Name, and Database authentication, which is Windows authentication (recommended) unless you have specific design needs to change them.

 9. If you have SQL Server database mirroring configured and you want to include the

Business Data Connectivity Service database in mirroring, provide the name of the failover database server in the Failover Database Server box.

 10. If you have not already created a new application pool for your service

applications, enter a name for a new application pool in the Application pool name box, for example, "SharePointServiceApps". You can use this application pool for all your service applications. For more information on planning, creating and configuring service applications, see Manage service applications in SharePoint 2013. 

11. Select the account that you configured in the Prerequisites for deploying a Business Connectivity Services on-premises solution in the SharePoint 2013 procedure as the SharePoint products application services account in the Configurable drop down. 

12. Click "OK" to create the new Business Data Connectivity Service Application and click "OK" again. 

13. Select the row that the Business Data Connectivity Service Application is in, not the proxy row.

 14. Click "Administrators" in the Operations area and add any accounts that you want

to be able to administer the Business Data Connectivity service application granting them full control. When these individuals open Central Administration they will only be able to administer the Business Data Connectivity service application.

Business Data ConnectivityBusiness Connectivity Services is a centralized infrastructure in SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 that supports integrated data solutions. With Business Connectivity Services, you can use SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 clients as interfaces into data that doesn’t live in SharePoint 2013 itself. For example, this external data may be in a database and it is accessed by using the out-of-the-box Business Connectivity Services connector for that database. Business Connectivity Services can also connect to data that is available through a web service, or data that is published as an OData source or many other types of external data. Business Connectivity Services does this through out-of-the box or custom connectors.

External Content Types in BCSExternal content types are the core of BCS. They enable you to manage and reuse the metadata and behaviors of a business entity, such as Customer or Order, from a central location. They enable users to interact with that external data and process it in a more meaningful way.

For more information about using external content types in BCS, see External content types in SharePoint 2013.

How to Connect With SQL External Data SourceOpen the SharePoint Designer 2013 and click on the open site icon:

Input the site URL which we need to open:

Enter your site credentials here:

Now we need to create the new external content type and here we have the options for changing the name of the content type and creating the connection for external data source:

And click on the hyperlink text “Click here to discover the external data source operations, now this window will open:

Click on the “Add Connection “button, we can create a new connection. Here we have the different options to select .NET Type, SQL Server, WCF Service.

Here we selected SQL server, now we need to provide the Server credentials:

Now, we can see all the tables and views from the database.

In this screen, we have the options for creating different types of operations against the database:

Click on the next button:

Parameters Configurations:

Options for Filter parameters Configuration:

Here we need to add new External List, Click on the “External List”:

Select the Site here and click ok button:

Enter the list name here and click ok button:

After that, refresh the SharePoint site, we can see the external list here and click on the list:

Here we have the error message “Access denied by Business Connectivity.”

Solution for this ErrorSharePoint central admin, click on the Manage service application:

Click on the Business Data Connectivity Service:

Set the permission for this list:

Click ok after setting the permissions:

After that, refresh the site and hope this will work… but again, it has a problem. The error message like Login failed for user “NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON”.

Solution for this ErrorWe need to edit the connection properties, the Authentication mode selects the value ‘BDC Identity’.

Then follow the below mentioned steps.

Open PowerShell and type the following lines:

Hide   Copy Code$bdc = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {$_ -match “Business Data Connectivity Service”}$bdc.RevertToSelfAllowed = $true

$bdc.Update();

Now it's working fine.

And there is a chance for one more error like:

Hide   Copy CodeDatabase Connector has throttled the response.The response from database contains more than '2000' rows. The maximum number of rows that can be read through Database Connector is '2000'. The limit can be changed via the 'Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig' cmdlet

It's because it depends on the number of recodes that exist in the table.

Solution for this ErrorFollow the below steps:

Open PowerShell and type the following lines and execute:

Hide   Copy Code$bcs = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | where{$_.GetType().FullName -eq (‘Microsoft.SharePoint.BusinessData.SharedService.’ + ‘BdcServiceApplicationProxy’)}$BCSThrottle = Get-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig -Scope database -ThrottleType items -ServiceApplicationProxy $bcsSet-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig -Identity $BCSThrottle -Maximum 1000000 -Default 20000

Now it will work fine.