1. Microsoft ® Official Course Creating Advanced Business Data Connectivity Models Microsoft SharePoint 2013 SharePoint Practice

2. Module Overview Configuring BDC Models for Search Developing Custom Connectivity Components Working with External Events and Notifications

3. Lesson 1: Configuring BDC Models for Search Searching External Data BDC Search Methods BDC Model Search Properties BDC Model Search Security Optimizing Crawl Performance Demonstration: Exploring BDC Models for Search Discussion: Custom BCS Connectors

4. Searching External Data SharePoint provides several ways to search external data Federation Protocol Handlers BCS Search Connectors BCS Search Connectors allow non-standardized external data to be surfaced Example: Custom proprietary, non-database based data store of files, security and metadata Extensibility of SharePoint Search via BCS Connector model is provided by.NET programming layer

5. BDC Search Methods Search Connectors using BDC Models require specific stereotyped methods IDEnumerator StreamAccessor BinarySecurityDescriptorAccessor SpecificFinder Performance enhancing methods should be considered ChangedIdEnumerator DeletedIdEnumerator

6. BDC Model Search Properties In addition to stereotyped methods, several special properties exist to support search functionality Used to tell search which crawled properties map to search specific values Examples: DisplayUriField, MimeType, LastModifiedTimeStampField Without these search properties, you cannot select the model as a search content source: ShowInSearchUI RootFinder

7. BDC Model Search Security Search security involves two levels Authenticate to the external source Get security details of items from the source External Source Authentication is same as any BDC model Exception is the search app pool account may be used as the authenticated caller Retrieving security details from a target source may require a mapping scheme Example: JohnDoe, Grant =>Contoso\JohnD, NTLM Allow Use the BinarySecurityDescriptorAccessor method

8. Optimizing Crawl Performance Indexing large external sources with several millions of items presents challenges Incremental crawls should be implemented ChangedIdEnumerator DeletedIdEnumerator Utilize the multipart architecture of BDC Search model Retrieve file contents via the StreamAccessor Retrieve security via the BinarySecurityDescriptorAccessor UseClientCachingForSearch property can be used to cache items

9. Demonstration: Exploring BDC Models for Search In this demonstration, your instructor will walkthrough a simple BDC Model for searching external content.

10. Discussion: Custom BCS Connectors What types of application data might you build a BCS connector to index?

11. Lesson 2: Developing Custom Connectivity Components BCS External Connectors Creating and Deploying.NET Connectivity Assembly Creating and Deploying Custom Connectors Storing External System Credentials Search Connector Best Practices Troubleshooting and debugging BCS Connectors

12. BCS External Connectors There are four types of BDC Model types Database WCF.NET Connectivity Custom Database and WCF are easily created using SharePoint Designer Deeper level logic such as item level security and incremental crawl support is not supported.NET Connectivity and Custom require.NET developed assemblies via Visual Studio Both are.NET based artifacts, difference is in the way they are implemented Custom Connector is much more flexible in its ability to integrate with the search architecture

13. Creating and Deploying.NET Connectivity Assembly Visual Studio has several wizards and tools to help support.NET Connector development Mainly relates to the model file, but some support for.NET connector is provided Deployment is two step process Deploy Model to BCS Call the Import- SPBusinessDataCatalogDotNetAssembly cmdlet to deploy the assembly Once assembly is deployed, SharePoint designer can be used to create new models

14. Creating and Deploying Custom Connectors Visual Studio support for Custom Connectors is limited Support for BDC model file Support for Interface implementation signatures No auto-generation support of methods or method signatures Custom connector models require implementation of specific interfaces ISystemUtility, IConnectionManager, ITypeReflector, IAdminsitrableSystem,ISystemPropetyValidator Model must have special properties added to point to interface implementation classes

15. Storing External System Credentials Consider how you will store the credentials used to connect to the external system Common approach is to utilize Secure Store Service application Store Application Id in the BDC Model file Implement the IContextProperty interface Implement code to retrieve the Application Id Use the Application Id to retrieve the credentials Use credentials to login to remote system

16. Search Connector Best Practices No matter what type of connector, ensure you follow best practices Handle null values Match parameter names Handle exceptions Avoid large memory usage Implement incremental crawl methods Use filters to limit data retrieval

17. Troubleshooting and debugging BCS Connectors Utilize Search Crawl Logs and ULS logs to debug and troubleshoot your BCS Search Connectors ULS crawl related logs will be under mssdmn.exe process Errors and stack trace will be more detailed than crawl log entries Utilize the ULSViewer.exe tool to easily filter and monitor for errors Attach the Visual Studio Debugger the mssdmn.exe to debug your.NET connector Try to avoid common errors to decrease development time

18. Lesson 3: Working with External Events and Notifications Event and Notification Features Enabling External System Events BCS Events Feature Implementing BDC Event Methods Initiating Subscriptions External List Event Receivers Demonstration: Working with External Events

19. Event and Notification Features SharePoint 2010 External lists did not support alerts or event receivers New SharePoint 2013 stereotyped operations allow external lists to participate in notification features of SharePoint Alerts Event Receivers Remote Event Receivers

20. Enabling External System Events External system must provide subscription support OData would provide a Subscribe and Unsubscribe HTTP method Database model would provide a Subscribe and Unsubscribe stored procedures External system must be record subscription data Example: DeliveryAddress, EntityName, Columns, User When data changes, it is responsibility of external system to notify SharePoint of changes Same event may trigger multiple subscription notifications Response message format must be an Atom feed response

21. BCS Events Feature BCS Event Support requires a hidden list to be created to keep track of subscriptions “External Subscriptions Store” list stored in _private\ExtSubs folder Enabled by activating the ExternalSubscriptions web feature SoporteITC

22. Implementing BDC Event Methods BDC Model has been extended to have two new stereotypes methods EventSubscriber, EventUnsubscriber Special properties drive the method behavior IsDeliveryAddress, IsEventType, IsOnBehalfOfField, SubscriptionIdName OData method type requires specific properties to drive information exchange ODataEntityUrl, ODataHttpMethod, ODataPayloadKind Three Message Response Parsers Identity, ODataEntryContent, Custom Identity is default if none specified

23. Initiating Subscriptions Subscriptions can be created explicitly or implicitly Explicit calls are made via the entity’s subscribe method Implicit calls are made when alerts or event receivers are created Conversely, a subscription can be removed explicitly or implicitly Explicit is made via entity’s unsubscribe method Implicit is called when an alert or event receiver is removed

24. External List Event Receivers Once subscription methods are configured you can place event receivers on your external lists ItemAdded, ItemUpdated and ItemDeleted are only supported events A new property of the SPItemEventProperties class is ExternalNotificationMessage Contains the encoded message that was sent from the external system Convert the message to a string and analyze the external event changes

25. Demonstration: Working with External Events In this demonstration your instructor will demonstrate how to deploy an OData BCS model that support event subscriptions

26. Demonstration: Working with External Events

30. Lab: Creating and Deploying a.NET Connectivity Assembly Exercise 1: Create a.NET Connectivity Assembly Exercise 2: Implementing Entity Methods Exercise 3: Deploying and testing a.NET Connectivity Model

31. Lab Scenario Contoso has a subsidiary company called Northwind that would like to use the Contoso SharePoint Farm to index their product data. They have asked you as the Contoso Sr SharePoint Developer to help them architect and build a solution. The basic requirements are the Northwind users would like to be able to search on product data from multiple data sources using SharePoint Search and be able to update that data using SharePoint interfaces. The product data is spread across two separate databases. They have asked you to present all the data in the two databases as a single item in the search results

32. Lab Scenario and in an external list. You have been tasked with using BCS Search Connector framework to accomplish this business requirement.

33. Lab Review What is the most important thing to double check when building your entity model methods and your entity class methods? What is the reason for having multiple methods that retrieve information about a single items such as metadata, security and the file contents?

34. Module Review and Takeaways