Welcome to the Minnesota SharePoint User Group July 14 th, 2010 Introducing the BCS Raymond Mitchell Meeting # 67

Agenda Introductions BCS Break A little more BCS Q & A

User Group Goal / Objectives Develop and support a local community focused on Microsoft SharePoint Technologies Educate user group members about SharePoint Technologies Transfer knowledge within the community Communicate best practices Introduce new products / solutions

Introductions – MNSPUG Sponsors Inetium ( Technology consulting company Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Practice area focused on SharePoint Benchmark Learning ( Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Training on many technologies Microsoft (

Website for user group SharePoint resource documents SharePoint resource links RSS Feeds Meeting Schedule Past User Group Presentations

Social Networking Linked In group – The most interactive… includes job postings… – Facebook group – and #MNSPUG

Upcoming Schedule Next Meeting Aug 11 th 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM Microsoft’s Bloomington Office Topic: Solution Showcase: Composite Application for Knowledge Management Check for updates! Ongoing Schedule 2 nd Wednesday of every month 9:00 to 11:30 am Microsoft’s Bloomington Office

Local Events SharePoint Saturday – October 2, 2010 *FREE* University of Minnesota – East Bank, Twin Cities Campus

Conferences Best Practices Conference – August 24-27, Washington, D.C. SPTechCon – SharePoint Technology Conference – October 20-22, Boston, MA No SharePoint Conference this year… October 3-6,

Announcements Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook –

Introducing the BCS

What is the BCS? Business Connectivity Services Evolution of the 2007 Business Data Catalog Framework for surfacing LOB data in SharePoint and Office

Business Connectivity Services BCS in SharePoint Server 2010 BCS Profile Import BCS Search

BCS Improvements Read AND Write capabilities Integration with office Offline capabilities Client Data Cache Tools!

What do I need for BCS? Included in SharePoint Foundation Extended support in SharePoint Server: – Profile Page – External Data Search – Secure Store Service SharePoint Server Enterprise: – Office Client Integration – Business Data Web Parts

BCS SharePoint Integration Meta Data Store Meta Data Store External data

BCS Components External Systems – Connection to a LOB System: Web Service Database.NET Type BDC Model (big, ugly XML file) – Reference to the Entities and connection properties – Can import into Visual Studio External Content Type – Entity definition

BCS Components Entity Definition: – Fields and mappings – Operations – Associations – Actions ECT Operations: – Create – Read Item – Read List – Update – Delete

BCS Components LOB System DBConnector BCS Meta Data Store BCS Meta Data Store External System BDC Model External Content - Type Operations

Demo 1 Create an ECT

BCS and Lists External Data Columns – Added via the browser (similar to lookup fields) External Lists – Added via SharePoint Designer

Demo 2 Add an External Data Column (via browser) Add an External List (via SPD)

BCS Web Parts Business Data Item – Display a single BCS Entity Business Data Item Builder – Get a BCS Entity based on a parameter Business Data List – Get a list of BCS Entities Business Data Related List – Display a related list of BCS Entities Business Data Connectivity Filter – Provides filter data from BCS Entities Business Data Actions – Displays a list of related actions for a BCS Entity

Demo 3 Build a UI for BDC Model using the BCS Web Parts

BCS Actions Create parameterized URL “commands” for BCS entities Scenarios: – Link to an existing LOB application page – External service that takes a parameter Search engine Mapping application – Custom ASPX page deployed to create custom visualization

Demo 4 Build a custom BCS Action

Break 5-10 minutes

BCS Search / Profile Pages Parameterized profile page created for each entity Search configured to index profile page – Essentially indexes your LOB system Web Part Pages = Customizable

Demo 5 Configure and customize a profile page Configure Search for BCS

BCS Office Integration Word – Use “Quick Parts” to configure BCS Data Columns – Present LOB data in Word documents and templates

Demo 6 Create a word template that utilizes Quick Parts & BCS Data

BCS Outlook Integration Connect an External List to OUTLOOK – ECT must be configured/mapped to an Office Item Type – Creates a ClickOnce application that is installed in Outlook – BCS Client Runtime and Cache – Configured so the client talks directly to the LOB system (doesn’t proxy through SharePoint Server) Create an “Outlook Declarative Solution” – XML configuration for custom Task Panes in Outlook – Walkthroughs available in the SDK

Demo 7 Connect an external list to Outlook

BCS Associations Configure relationships between ECTs Limited with SharePoint Designer: – Associations must be made in the correct order – Advanced Associations are not supported

BCS + PowerShell Can use PowerShell to work with the BCS Object Model BCS Cmdlets Get-Command –noun SP*BusinessData* Clear-SPSiteSubscriptionBusinessDataCatalogConfig Copy-SPBusinessDataCatalogAclToChildren Disable-SPBusinessDataCatalogEntity Enable-SPBusinessDataCatalogEntity Export-SPBusinessDataCatalogModel Export-SPSiteSubscriptionBusinessDataCatalogConfig Get-SPBusinessDataCatalogMetadataObject Get-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig Grant-SPBusinessDataCatalogMetadataObject Import-SPBusinessDataCatalogDotNetAssembly Import-SPBusinessDataCatalogModel Import-SPSiteSubscriptionBusinessDataCatalogConfig New-SPBusinessDataCatalogServiceApplication New-SPBusinessDataCatalogServiceApplicationProxy Remove-SPBusinessDataCatalogModel Remove-SPSiteSubscriptionBusinessDataCatalogConfig Revoke-SPBusinessDataCatalogMetadataObject Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogMetadataObject Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogServiceApplication Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig

BCS Custom Solutions Client and Server Object Model Client Cache for Offline VSTO for custom Office Extensions – BCS connectivity in Excel

SDK Don’t forget about the SharePoint Server 2010 SDK: – 4c54-45ed-9bde-7b4d83a8f26f&displaylang=en 4c54-45ed-9bde-7b4d83a8f26f&displaylang=en

Demo 8 AdventureWorks2008.NET Assembly Sample

Q & A

References BCS Team Blog: – SharePoint 2010 SDK: – Download: 7b4d83a8f26f&displaylang=enhttp:// 7b4d83a8f26f&displaylang=en – View: BCS Resource Center (MSDN) –

Thanks for coming!