SharePoint 2010 BCS

www.orbitone.com
Raas van Gaverestraat 83
B-9000 GENT, BELGIUM
E-mail info@orbitone.com
Website www.orbitone.com
Tel. +32 9 330 15 00
VAT BE 456.457.353
Bank 442-7059001-50 (KBC)
H. De Smedt, J. De Clercq, V. Bardadym
14 July, 2010
SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services-
Possibilities and Limitations

14 July, 2010
SharePoint 2010 Business Data Connectivity - Possibilities and Limitations
Summary
Overview of BCS
BCS Architecture
Getting started
No-Code BCS Solutions and Limitations
Overcome No-Code Limitations
Test Cases
Questions & Answers

What is BCS, previously BDC
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is the way to bring your
external data to SharePoint sites.
SharePoint 2007 had a similar facility, Business Data Catalog
(BDC), which made external data available within its site.
14 July, 2010

What's new in SP 2010 BCS:
Read-write.
More connectivity options.
Design and customization tools.
Rich Client integration.
Work online or offline.
Application Lifecycle.
14 July, 2010

Where we (are going to) use BCS / BDC @ Orbit
One
Education International – Membership Dues (SP 2007, BDC to
CRM)
Orbit One Intranet – FogBugz
Lucerna school, Students’ Follow-Up – Data from Informat
InSites Consulting – Navision (projects, clients,...)
Amonis – Panoramix (internal ERP)
14 July, 2010

What editions of 2010 is it in, and what are the
differences
 Foundation
Business Connectivity Services
 Standard
Business Connectivity Services Profile Page
 Enterprise
Business Data Integration with the Office Client
Business Data Web Parts
In 2007 BDC was only in Enterprise Edition
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-
Comparison.aspx
14 July, 2010

14 July, 2010
BCS Architecture
SQL WCF .NET Assembly Custom
Connectors
Business Data Connectivity
Office Integration
Office 2010 Client
Business Data Connectivity
SharePoint Site
SharePoint Server 2010

14 July, 2010
Solution Types
Client
Server
Basic Advanced
SharePoint Designer
SharePoint Workspace Declarative Solutions
Microsoft Outlook VSTO Solutions
.NET Assembly
Connector
Microsoft Word
Custom Web Parts

Connections
SQL (FogBugz)
WCF (Lucerna)
.Net
When to choose? What are limitations of each?
We make a site with three different connections
Connections are prepared in advance
14 July, 2010

Prerequisites
Permissions
External data source (example: WCF)
Who makes BCS?
Information worker (“no-code”)
Developer (code)
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How to make a list in BCS
14 July, 2010

Set user permission to BCS
14 July, 2010

What can you do with BCS
Search:
Crawling of the external database (indexing)
Show in SharePoint search results
Drill down / filter using facets
External list
List with bcs property
Webparts
14 July, 2010

Demo
External document management system (DMS):
Quick Walktrough
14 July, 2010

14 July, 2010
External DMS: Data
Excel Documents: Generated with points of students
Hierarchy: Documents organized by year
Search support: into these documents

14 July, 2010
External Content Type List
Start SharePoint Designer
Create External List

14 July, 2010
External DMS: Result
http://hdesmedt-deskt/sites/HansPoint/default.aspx

14 July, 2010
Challenges with No-Code Solutions
Subset of operations with no way to customize the
implementation
No folder support
No attachment support
No search security support
No support for Word or Excel add-ins

14 July, 2010
Subset of operations with no way to customize
the implementation
XML file
Declarative
Connector LobSystem Type: Dot Net Assembly

14 July, 2010
Subset of operations with no way to customize
the implementation
Out-of-the-box webpart knows what Io.Stream is!
Operations SPD doesn’t have

14 July, 2010
Intermezzo
SharePoint Development
Binding to sharepoint?
If you have Custom Database
Use SharePoint WebParts to show it via Declaritive XML
Write BCS app against that
•No Binding
•No Guiding
BCS is the way to bring applications to SharePoint

14 July, 2010
Overcoming UI Limitations
Visual
Webpart:
GridView
Use BCS to call
the external
system
Retrieve items for
the current folder
from DB

14 July, 2010
No search security support
What happens:
• ReadAllItems
• 1 root finder method – builds index
• ShowInSearchUI

14 July, 2010
Security
• Secure Store Service
• Maps windows id to your identities (GetDmsUserName)
• Single sign on service
• Individual / Group maps

14 July, 2010
Customizations
Url
Author
…

14 July, 2010
No support for Word or Excel add-ins
 Overview of your documents
 99% Word Add-in
 Same Code as WebPart
 Same as sync with Outlook

14 July, 2010
Summary
No-Code BCS Solutions are great for a quick start
Lots of support for operations, associations, search, sync
Can’t control the implementation
Has some limitations around folders, attachments
Overcoming No-Code Limitations
.NET Assembly Connectors
Custom Web Parts
Search Security
Data-Only Solutions
Custom VSTO Solutions

What are the limitations?
14 July, 2010

BCS External List Limitations
Be careful!
 Workflows cannot be configured on External Lists
 Cannot create Information Management Policies
 No versioning or history
 No Inline Editing or Datasheet View out of the box
 No ratings
 No "No-Code" ability to Export to Excel, Create Visio Diagram, Open with
Access or Open with Project
 No REST access through ListData.svc to External Lists
 No RSS Feeds
 No Item Level Permissions
 No item or field level validation
http://www.sharepointanalysthq.com/2010/07/bcs-external-list-limitations/
14 July, 2010

Can we do it with BCS list?
 Define columns to display?
 Yes
 Sort?
 Yes
 Filter?
 Yes
 Group?
 Yes
 Calculate?
 No
14 July, 2010

Can we do it with BCS item picker?
 Search in item picker – how does it work?
 Can be chosen during configuration
Search complete value (Filter Type = Comparison)
Search beginning of the value
Search any substring (Filter Type = Wildcard)
 What fields are searched in item picker?
 Can be defined in come from SQL
 Not from WCF
 Can we use cascade filtering in item picker?
 (e.g. Campus = Brussels, then Class = 2MW)
 No
 Can we set sorting order in item picker?
 No
 Can we filter the list in item picker?
 Yes
 Can we select columns in item picker?
 Yes
14 July, 2010

Can we make content types and columns with BCS?
 Can we create a lookup column on a BCS list?
 Yes, but with limitations
No addintional fields to show (not handy with people’s list if we only
choose family name)
With certain paramaters the column values are not shown in list views.
 Can we create a lookup column with multiple values on a BCS list?
 No
 Can we create a content type with lookup columns on BCS lists?
 Yes
14 July, 2010

How can we show BCS data?
 Content query web part on a BCS list
 No
 Content query web part on a list with BCS lookup columns
 Yes
 Data view web part on a BCS list
 Limited to functionality of list view web part
 Calendar view on BCS data
 No
 Pictures
 Only if represented as Image type in the database
14 July, 2010

Can we search in BCS?
Yes
Refining search
Edit XML in web part
on search result page.
14 July, 2010

How static / dynamic are BCS data?
Can we keep some BCS data static in documents, so that the
next year the class does not change in the documents for the
current year?
If the data are always dynamic, can we assign the current value
to the document as default ?
Mel: no
What happens in documents on SharePoint sites if in the data
source we have a deleted record?
Mel: has to be an error after refreshing
14 July, 2010

Alternatives
BDC
Third party solutions
Sync from external sources to SharePoint lists
Custom solutions
Code
ASCX web part connected to external source
External links in Excel & Access
14 July, 2010

Alternatives - comparison
Discussion
14 July, 2010

Third party solution – Layer 2
http://www.layer2.de/en/community/FAQs/BDLC/Pages/Feature-comparision-sharepoint-external-list.aspx
Feature SharePoint 2010 External List SharePoint BDLC List
Integrate external data from various sources into SharePoint
A complete SharePoint list with all list features is implemented
OOB almost any type of data source is supported (.NET Type / WCF Service / SQL Server) (more info)
Full SharePoint 2007 / WSS 3.0 support (SharePoint Foundation 2010 supported)
No additional tools, modelling or programming are required to create a
list
(SharePoint Designer has to be installed
and used)
Connection can be established in just some minutes (more info)
OOB full search capabilities (not for SharePoint Foundation?)
OOB web part connectivity (not for SharePoint Foundation?)
Full Offline capabilities (2010 only)
(with SharePoint 2010 only, SharePoint
2007 for V2.0 and certain list types only)
OOB-support for the SharePoint Client Object Model
OOB-support for REST-services
OOB-support for making associations to other SharePoint lists
Event-triggering
Alerts will be fired on data change
Email notification on data change
RSS notification on data change
Workflows can start business actions on data change
Datagrid editing supported
Lookups can display any column (ID Only)
Support for joins as data source
Support for common SharePoint list types, e.g. contacts, tasks, events
etc.
Original data source is not queried every time the list is displayed with
performance side effects
(some kind of cache seems to
be implemented)
OOB there is no row limit
(it seems to be a row limit of 2000
preconfigured, more info)
Data source can be updated (if primary key available) (for a few data sources only) (if supported by data source)
14 July, 2010

www.orbitone.com
14 July, 2010
Q & A

www.orbitone.com
14 July, 2010
Many thanks to Mel Gerats and
Thijs ter Beek for support!

SharePoint 2010 BCS

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