The document discusses SharePoint 2010 integration and interoperability capabilities. It covers business data challenges, how SharePoint addresses interoperability as an identity, search and data access platform, and what the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is. The BCS allows integrating external systems through external content types, external columns and external lists. It also discusses limitations of the BCS and external lists. The presentation concludes with a demonstration and a thank you.

1. SharePoint 2010
Integration and Interoperability:
What You Need to Know
@rharbridge #BASPUG
Presented By: Richard Harbridge and Mark Bramhall

2. Who are we?

3. Our Goal Today…
From Here To Here

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

5. Business Data
Challenges

6. #BASPUG
Business Data in an Enterprise
Customers FinancialQuality OperationsSuppliersCustomers FinancialQuality OperationsSuppliers
Users
IT
High Overhead (Maintenance, Security)High Integration Costs (Custom)
High Training CostsHigh Dissatisfaction
Redundant Data and Processes!

7. #BASPUG
Challenges with Business Data
Challenge IT End User
Higher Overhead for IT to Service User Requests  
Multiple Places to Search  
Multiple Places to Administer and Maintain  
Multiple Places to Manage Content  
Multiple Places to Secure Information  
High Data Integration Costs (Often 100% Custom and One Offs)  
Silos/Islands of Data Lead to Redundant Data or Processes  
Multiple Interfaces; Dissatisfaction and Higher Training Costs  
Higher Operational and Compliance Risk 
Direct Impact
Indirect Impact



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

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

10. SharePoint’s Important
Interoperability

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

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

13. #BASPUG
SharePoint Interoperability

14. #BASPUG
Is it a UI Platform?

15. #BASPUG
Why would we use SharePoint as
a User Interface Platform?

16. Consistent User Experience
Across Browsers
Well.. Almost.

17. #BASPUG
It’s a UI Platform
1. By adhering to published interface standards.

18. #BASPUG
A UI Platform Bonus?Bonus!

19. #BASPUG
Leverage Office and SharePoint
Interface Familiarity

20. #BASPUG
Is it an Identity Platform?

21. #BASPUG
Why would we use SharePoint as
an Identity Platform?

22. 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.

23. #BASPUG
Claims Uses
Consistent Standards
*Doesn’t actually support SAML Protocol (SAMLP)
1. By adhering to published interface standards.

24. #BASPUG
It’s an Identity Platform

25. #BASPUG
Is it a Search Platform?

26. #BASPUG
Why would we use SharePoint as
a Search Platform?

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

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

29. #BASPUG
A Search Platform Bonus!Bonus!

30. #BASPUG
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…
1. By adhering to published interface standards.

31. #BASPUG
It is a Search Platform

32. #BASPUG
Is it a Data Access Platform?

33. #BASPUG
SharePoint Does a Great Job of
Accessing SharePoint Content!

34. #BASPUG
What about External Systems
and Content?
_ _ _B C S

35. #BASPUG
A Data Access Platform Bonus!Bonus! x 2

36. #BASPUG
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

37. #BASPUG
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.

38. #BASPUG
SharePoint has Interoperability
Some might even say it has storage interoperability…But the coolest part of interoperability?
2. By making use of a "broker" of services that
can convert one system’s interface into another
system’s interface "on the fly".

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

40. What to watch out for…
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

41. What is the
BCS?

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

43. #BASPUG
External Data
External
Content Types
External Lists
SharePoint
Workspace w/
InfoPath Forms
Outlook Forms
and Task Panes
Office
Applications
Search Results
Or this simplified one…

44. #BASPUG
External Data
External
Content Types
External Lists
SharePoint
Workspace w/
InfoPath Forms
Outlook Forms
and Task Panes
Office
Applications
Search Results
External Content Types
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

45. #BASPUG
External Data
External
Content Types
External Lists
SharePoint
Workspace w/
InfoPath Forms
Outlook Forms
and Task Panes
Office
Applications
Search Results
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”

46. #BASPUG
External Data
External
Content Types
External Lists
SharePoint
Workspace w/
InfoPath Forms
Outlook Forms
and Task Panes
Office
Applications
Search Results
Offline Lists
External Lists also be leveraged as Offline “Lists”
Or Connected to Outlook as
Contacts, Tasks, Calendars and Posts

47. #BASPUG
External Data
External
Content Types
External Lists
SharePoint
Workspace w/
InfoPath Forms
Outlook Forms
and Task Panes
Office
Applications
Search Results
Office Applications and Search
w/ Code
External Content Types can also be leveraged in…
Many other Office Applications
(or Custom Applications)
Or Leveraged to allow for
External Data Searching or Filtering

48. #BASPUG
External Data
External
Content Types
External Lists
SharePoint
Workspace w/
InfoPath Forms
Outlook Forms
and Task Panes
Office
Applications
Search Results
Bonus! Integration Webparts
w/ Code
Bonus!
Web Parts
External Data List
External Data Item
External Data Item Builder
External Data Related List
External Data Connectivity Filter
Chart Web Part (New)
Integration
Webparts

49. #BASPUG
Didn’t those webparts work with
the BDC?

50. #BASPUG
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.

51. #BASPUG
How do I actually build it out?

52. Intermediate AdvancedSimple
• Create Reusable
Components (UI parts,
ECTs, Actions)
Out-of-box
• Surface data in
External Lists
• Connect those lists to
Outlook, SPW
• External Data Columns
DeveloperPower User
NO CODE
Advanced Developer
CODE
Where things fit.
“NO CODE”

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

54. #BASPUG
Visual Studio Process
w/ Code

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

56. What to watch out for…
Selecting the right tool is important.
Practice makes perfect.

57. #BASPUG
That’s a lot of information!

58. #BASPUG

59. Demo!

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

61. What to watch out for…
Don’t assume the tools will
significantly reduce the time it takes
to ‘integrate’. It typically reduces
time to ‘interface’.

62. What are BCS
Limitations?

63. #BASPUG
General BCS Limitations
• 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 fields property.

64. #BASPUG
External List Limitations
• Workflows cannot be associated with external lists
• Workaround: You can use the external data columns and manipulate it
that way.
• No RSS 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 configure alerts 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
• Versioning cannot 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

65. #BASPUG
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

66. #BASPUG
• 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
Bonus! External Column
Limitations
Bonus!

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

68. What to watch out for…
Some of the many limitations
mentioned make sense. Think
carefully before you build a
‘workaround’.

69. 1. Business Data Challenges
2. SharePoint’s Important Interoperability
3. What is the BCS?
External Content Types
External Columns
External Lists
Extensibility and Tooling
4. Limitations of BCS
1. The Challenges Aren’t All Technology Challenges
2. Interface, Identity, Search and Data Access Platform
3. 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
4. Good Enough and Better than Most Options
What we talked about…

70. Thank You!
Thanks to Organizers, Sponsors and You for Making this Possible.
Questions? Ideas? Feedback? Contact me:
 Twitter: @rharbridge
 Blog: www.rharbridge.com
 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rharbridge
 Email me at: RHarbridge@Allin.com
 My company: www.Allin.com