SharePoint Fest Denver - SharePoint 2010 Integration and Interoperability: What You Need To Know

SharePoint 2010Integration and Interoperability:What you Need to Know
Presented By: Richard Harbridge
@rharbridge

Who am I?
I

Our Goal Today…
From Here To Here

What we will be talking about…
Business Data Challenges
SharePoint’s Important Interoperability
What is the BCS?
External Content Types
External Columns
External Lists
Extensibilityand Tooling
4. Demonstration
5. Limitations of BCS
Bonus!

Business Data in an Enterprise
IT
High Integration Costs (Custom)
High Overhead (Maintenance, Security)
Quality
Financial
Customers
Operations
Suppliers
Quality
Financial
Customers
Operations
Suppliers
Redundant Data and Processes!
Users
High Training Costs
High Dissatisfaction

Challengeswith Business Data
Direct Impact
Indirect Impact



The Outcome
There are challenges that disparate and disconnected business data systems cause.

What to watch out for…
No system, product or application can completely solve business data challenges.

What the heck is Interoperability?
(IHN-tuhr-AHP-uhr-uh-BIHL-ih-tee)
“Interoperability is the ability of a system.. to work with other systems.. without special effort on the part of the customer.”
How?

How do we achieve Interoperability?
1. By adhering to published interface standards.
Does SharePoint do this?
SPOILER ALERT!
2. By making use of a "broker" of services that can convert one system’s interface into another system’s interface "on the fly".
What about this one?

SharePoint Interoperability
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Search Platform
Data Access Platform
Storage
External
Data

Is it a UI Platform?
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Search Platform
Storage
External
Data

Why would we use SharePoint as a User Interface Platform?

Consistent User Experience Across Browsers
Well.. Almost.

It’s a UI Platform
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Search Platform
Storage
External
Data

A UI Platform Bonus?
Bonus!
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Works in Office
Search Platform
Storage
External
Data

Leverage Office and SharePoint Interface Familiarity

Is it an Identity Platform?
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Works in Office
Search Platform
Storage
External
Data

Why would we use SharePoint as an Identity Platform?

Because Claims is Awesome
Connect with 3rd Party Authentication Providers
Connecting with a Non Windows Integrated Authentication driven web site.
Delegation with Back-End Systems
Showing data from another server on a SharePoint web page.

Claims UsesConsistent Standards
WS-Federation 1.1
Provides the architecture for a clean separation between trust mechanisms, security tokens formats, and the protocols for obtaining tokens.
WS-Trust 1.4
Provides a method for assessing, requesting and receiving security tokens.
SAML Token 1.1
XML vocabulary used to represent claims in an interoperable way.*
WS-Security… (various aspects)
*Doesn’t actually support SAML Protocol (SAMLP)

It’s an Identity Platform
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Storage
External
Data

Is it aSearch Platform?
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Storage
External
Data

Why would we use SharePoint as a Search Platform?

Query a 3rd Party Search Engine Using SharePoint UI
Federate Queries to Multiple Search Systems…

Index Content from a Range of Content Repositories
What does all of these?
_ _ _
B C S
B
Indexes Databases, Web Services or Custom Repositories
Provides Consistent Access to External Content
C
Has SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio Plug-ins
S

A Search Platform Bonus!
Bonus!
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Open Search
Storage
External
Data

Have you heard of OpenSearch?
Standard (Creative Commons) for syndication and aggregation of search results
Syntax for executing queries
Results returned in RSS/ATOM + extensions
Supported by Microsoft Search Server 2008
Clients: Windows 7, IE, FireFox, Chrome, SharePoint …
Providers: Amazon, Flickr, Wikipedia, SharePoint…

It is a Search Platform
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Open Search
Storage
External
Data

Is it a Data Access Platform?
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Open Search
Storage
External
Data

SharePoint Does a Great Job of Accessing SharePoint Content!

What about External Systems and Content?
_ _ _
B C S

A Data Access Platform Bonus!
Bonus!
x 2
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Open Search
CMIS
REST
Storage
External
Data

Content Management Interoperability Services
CMIS specification provides a Web services interface that:
Is designed to work over existing repositories enabling customers to build and leverage applications against multiple repositories—unlocking content they already have
Decouples Web services and content from the content management repository, enabling customers to manage content independently
Provides common Web services and Web 2.0 interfaces to dramatically simplify application development
Is development platform and language agnostic
Supports composite application development and mash-up by the business or IT analyst
A platform that allows you to build against multiple technologies without knowing anything about how all the API’s work. (If you know CMIS.)
Microsoft has been implementing this from both a client and provider perspective.
Not available “in the box”. Available via SharePoint Admin Toolkit

And then there’s REST
Access to SharePoint Lists and Document Libraries…
RESTful interface over HTTP
Uses the ADO.NET Data Services interface conventions
Feature rich: retrieve, update, browse data using just URLs and XML/JSON
Low barrier of entry. If you have an HTTP stack you can use it.
Visual Studio Integration…
Entirely built on top of the open RESTful interface
No client is required
Visual Studio creates proxies, visualizes schemas, provides LINQ support etc.

2. By making use of a "broker" of services that can convert one system’s interface into another system’s interface "on the fly".
SharePoint has Interoperability
HTML Standards
UI Platform
Identity Platform
Claims
Works in Office
Search Platform
Open Search
CMIS
OData
REST
Some might even say it has storage interoperability or that OData is a standard…
Storage
External
Data
But the coolest part of interoperability?
RBS
BCS

The Outcome
SharePoint is a growing Interoperable UI, Identity, Search, and Data Access Platform.

Remember this?
“Interoperability is the ability of a system to work with other systems without special effort on the part of the customer.”
without special effort

What is the BCS?

BCS External Data Benefits?
External Data

You could look at this diagram…
SharePoint Client
BCS in Office Client
Identity Federation
service
BCS in SharePoint
BCS Meta
Data Store
BDC
Client Data
Cache
BDC
ASCustom
Connector
DB
Connector
WCF /WS
Connector
.NET Assembly
Connector
Client to Backend Direct Connection
External data
Persistence Store
Data Cubes
Custom .NET assembly
SAP
ORACLE
Siebel
SQL

Or this simplified one…

Describes:
Structure of the external system (Fields, Methods, Connection)
How this data behaves within SharePoint and Office
Added to the BCS Service Through:
SharePoint Designer
Visual Studio 2010
Via an Import into the Business Data Connectivity Service as part of a model
Manage and Re-Use from a Central Location

External Lists
The external content type is leveraged in a variety of ways…
Such as for Exposing External Data as an External SharePoint List
Full CRUD capability
Familiar UI and Navigation
Sort, Filter, Group
Programmatic Access via SPList OM
Profile Page for Each Item
Form
Auto-generated OOB
Upsize to InfoPath
Can be Taken “Offline”

Offline Lists
External Lists also be leveraged as Offline “Lists”
They can be Downloaded to a SharePoint Workspace as Lists or Word Document Libraries with External Data Columns
Or Connected to Outlook as Contacts, Tasks, Calendars and Posts

Office Applications and Search
External Content Types can also be leveraged in…
Or Leveraged to allow for External Data Searching or Filtering
Many other Office Applications (or Custom Applications)
w/ Code

Bonus! Integration Webparts
Bonus!
Integration Webparts
Web Parts
External Data List
External Data Item
External Data Item Builder
External Data Related List
External Data Connectivity Filter
Chart Web Part (New)
w/ Code

Didn’t those webparts work with the BDC?

So what’s different? (Besides the Chart Control?)
Read/Write Capability
Claims Aware
Connect via ADO/SQL, WCF/WS, .Net Assembly and Custom Connectors
Batch and Bulk Operation Support
BDC is still used for search indexing connectors in 2010 they added blob, incremental crawl and item level security.
They added symmetrical server and client runtimes. Allowing them to connect from client or server directly to external data.
SQL CE database is used to cache external data which allows for “cached mode” behavior on external data basically creating a rich client cache.

How do I actually build it out?

Where things fit.
Custom
Custom connectivity for data aggregation, transformation, security, etc.
Use Custom Code to Integrate Data into any Office Application
Business Logic In Forms
Create Reusable Components (UI parts, ECTs, Actions)
Customize
InfoPath Forms
Workflow
Web Part Pages
Outlook Taskpane and Ribbon
Out-of-box
Surface data in External Lists
Connect those lists to Outlook, SPW
External Data Columns
Intermediate
Simple
Advanced
NO CODE
“NO CODE”
CODE
SharePoint Designer
SharePoint SDK
Visual
Studio
Developer
Power User
Advanced Developer

SharePoint Designer Process
Discover your Data Source
Database
Web services
.NET type
Map Operations to Data Source
Create, read, update, delete, lookup
Connect to SharePoint and/or Office
External List
Contact
Task
Appointment
Post

Visual Studio Process
Upsize IT Solutions Created in SharePoint Designer
Create Connectivity Packs in Visual Studio to
Aggregate data across multiple back-end systems
Perform custom data transformations
Execute custom business logic/rules (trigger workflow)
Bring External Data into other Office clients with VSTO Add-Ins (Excel)
w/ Code

Suggested Life Cycle

BCS Support Matrix
N/A
x
x
In code
In code
In code
In code
In code

SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio
Author External Content Types and Profile Pages
External Content Type Designer
Connect to existing WCF/Web Services, Sql Server or .Net Assemblies
Connect to virtually any data source through custom .Net code
Data Connectivity
Integrate External Data in WF
Workflow Designer
Generate and Author External Lists and InfoPath Forms
Lists and Forms Designer
SharePoint and Office
Office Add-in Projects
Extend Office apps through BCS-aware code add-ins and reusable components

SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio

The Outcome
The BCS has a bunch of new capabilities bundled with some old enhanced BDC ones.

Selecting the right tool is important. Practice makes perfect.

That’s a lot of information!

Inventory Example

Permissions
x
x
x
x

The Outcome
You saw how the BCS can be leveraged in SharePoint Designer and in the SharePoint UI.

Don’t assume the tools will significantly reduce the time it takes to ‘integrate’. It typically reduces time to ‘interface’.

What are BCSLimitations?

General BCS Limitations
BLOB
No Write support for BLOB
You cannot write back to BLOB fields using BCS unless you write your own method.
You can access BLOB columns by defining a StreamAccessor method and presenting the external data via the BCS Data List web part by checking the Display stream fieldsproperty.

External List Limitations
Workflows cannot be associated with external lists
Workaround: You can use the external data columns and manipulate it that way.
NoRSS feed support for external lists
No REST based access for external lists
http://sharepoint/_vti_bin/ListData.svc does not support external lists
LINQ to SharePoint spmetal.exe does not support external lists
Cannot configurealerts for external lists
Cannot export external list items to Excel (using the Export to Excel feature), Create Visio Diagram, Open with Access or Open with Project
Versioningcannot be configured on external lists
Version History is not available on external lists
Datasheet view cannot be used in external lists
XSLT is Supported (So you can basically make your own.)
External Lists

External List Limitations Continued…
Ratings feature is not supported for external lists
Information policies cannot be configured on external lists
Item-Level permissions are not available for external lists
No item or field level validation (without InfoPath)
Lookups don’t work on any column but ID
No attachments.
External Lists

Bonus!
Bonus! External Column Limitations
You cannot create a site column of type ‘External Data Column’
External data columns can be created only as list based columns and cannot be consumed in site level content types

Some Data Types Not Supported
No support for structs that are not simple types. (Do not use non-primitive structs.)
No nested collections (array of arrays etc)
No support for multi dimension arrays
BDC only works with .Net 3.5 - No dynamic programming in .Net 4
No support for ICollection or IEnumerableinterfaces to represent collections in data structures (ICollection<T>, IEnumerable<T>, IList<T>…)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621599.aspx

The Outcome
You now know more about the limitations of BCS and will make fewer assumptions.

Some of the many limitations mentioned make sense. Think carefully before you build a ‘workaround’.

What we talked about…
What is the BCS?
External Columns
External Lists
Extensibility and Tooling
Limitations of BCS
The Challenges Aren’t All Technology Challenges
Interface, Identity, Search and Data Access Platform
A Set of Powerful Connection Capabilities
Structured Types of External Content
Leveraging External Content with Internal Content
Interact Like SharePoint Lists
Extensibility/Tool Range from UI to SPD to VS 2010
Good Enough and Better than Most Options

Thank You – Fill Out Your Eval! Organizers, Sponsors andYoufor Making this Possible.
Twitter: @rharbridge
Blog: www.rharbridge.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rharbridge
Email me at: richard@rharbridge.com
My company: www.Allin.com
Assessments: www.SharePointDiagnostics.com

SharePoint Fest Denver - SharePoint 2010 Integration and Interoperability: What You Need To Know

by Richard Harbridge

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