Slides from my talk on BCS and Search at Dev Connections 2013

1. Surfacing your External Data
using BCS in SharePoint 2013
Fabian Williams
SharePoint Architect
Planet Technologies, Inc.
@fabianwilliams
Corey Roth
Principal Architect
Infusion
@coreyroth

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COREY ROTH
 Transplant
to Houston, TX
 Principal
Architect at Infusion
Development
 SP2
Apps for SharePoint 2013
 Four-timeMicrosoft
 Specializing
www.devconnections.com
SharePoint MVP
in ECM, Search, and apps
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WHERE IS FABIAN?
www.devconnections.com
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FABIAN HAS CHICKEN POX!
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FABIAN WILLIAMS
•
SharePoint Architect at Planet Technologies
in the Federal IW Practice
•
SharePoint Community Activist
•
•
SharePoint Saturday Speaker
•
•
International Speaker
MS SharePoint Conference Speaker
Avid/Incessant Blogger/Tweeter/Social Media
Menace
•
•
•
@fabianwilliams
http://www.sharepointfabian.com/blog
Send him a tweet wishing him to get well soon!
www.devconnections.com
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SOME CHANGES…
 No
Fabian = no alerts 
 Talk
will focus more on BCS and search
aspects now
 Feel
free to leave…no hard feelings 
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AGENDA
 BCS
Overview
 Configuring
Search with BCS
 Customizing
Search for BCS
 Search
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App
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WHY DO I CARE?
 Line
of Business integration is a great
often unused SharePoint feature
 Use
SharePoint to search custom
applications instead of writing your own
 Allows
global enterprise-wide search
across SharePoint and applications
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BUSINESS CONNECTIVITY SERVICES
(BCS)
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BCS OVERVIEW
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SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN BCS
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LIMITATIONS AFFECTING BCS
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EXTERNAL CONTENT TYPES
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SECURE STORE
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BCS WITH SEARCH
 Create
models with SPD or Visual Studio
 Be
sure to configure a profile page site in
BCS
 Be
sure and set Title column
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DEMO
BCS Configuration
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SEARCH
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CONFIGURING SEARCH WITH BCS
 Content
source
Source – used to index BCS
 Full
crawl required every time schema is
changed
 No
security trimming by default
 Default
content access account needs
permissions to:

Database (read only)

BCS (Execute / Select in Clients)
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SEARCH SCHEMA
 Defines
what search can crawl, query, and
refine on
 Crawled
properties – discovered during crawl
 Managed
 2013
level
properties – usable by search
- Defined at tenant, site collection, and site
 More
granular and configurable in 2013
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SEARCH SCHEMA WITH BCS
 Table
columns mapped to crawled properties
 Map
crawled properties to managed
properties to:

Display values in search results

Query against values

Configure refinement
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MANAGED PROPERTIES - ATTRIBUTES

Searchable – included in full-text index

Queryable – can be queried specifically

Retrievable – can be displayed in search
results

Refinable – used in refinement panel

Sortable – built-in now!

Safe – displayed for anonymous users

Complete Matching – requires exact match
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DEMO
Search configuration with BCS
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DISPLAY TEMPLATES
 Customize
 Allows
results
how individual search results look
BCS table columns to be shown in search
 Use
managed properties marked with
Retrievable
 Managed
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as HTML snippets in Design Manager
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DISPLAY TEMPLATES
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DEMO
Searching external content in SharePoint
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BUILDING A SEARCH APP
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QUERYING SEARCH
 New
Search REST API added
 Available
at /_api/search/query

Use querytext parameter to query

Enclose query in single quotes
 Example

 Test
http://server/_api/search/query?querytext=’SharePoint’
directly in the browser
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REST + JAVASCRIPT
 Assemble
REST API URL

Include path to REST API

Use KQL in querytext parameter
 Use
$.ajax() to execute query

Include Headers: { “Accept”: “application/json;
odata=verbose” }
 Retrieve

search results from:
data.d.query.PrimaryQueryResult.RelevantResults.Table.Ro
ws.results
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REST + JAVASCRIPT CODE
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SEARCH APP
 Use
JavaScript and REST API to search
our BCS source
 Result
BCS
source used to pre-filter results for
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DEMO
Building an app to search external data
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RECAP
 BCS
Overview
 Configuring
Search with BCS
 Customizing
Search for BCS
 Search
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App
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RESOURCES
Search with REST and JavaScript
http://bit.ly/16LmtDj
BCS and Subscriptions
http://bit.ly/14ysPHe
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QUESTIONS?
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