Module 6 Developing Solutions by Using Business Connectivity Services

1. Module 6 Developing Solutions by Using Business Connectivity Services

2. Module Overview • Business Connectivity Services Overview • Developing External Content Types and Lists by Using SharePoint Designer • Developing Business Connectivity Services Solutions by Using Visual Studio 2010 • Lab: Building Business Connectivity Services Solutions

3. Lesson 1: Business Connectivity Services Overview • What Is Business Connectivity Services? • External Content Types and External Lists • Business Connectivity Services Architecture

4. What Is Business Connectivity Services? • A set of technologies that enables SharePoint sites and solutions to connect to external data • Expose data as a list in SharePoint sites • Read/write access, if required • Enhancements for the Business Data Catalog of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 • A service application that is administered by farm administrators • A set of APIs that developers use to build connected solutions

5. External Content Types and External Lists • External content types describe the data from external systems • Metadata (columns) • Behaviors (methods) • External content types can include forms for adding and editing data from external systems • External lists represent instances of external content types • Appear as SharePoint lists to the information worker

6. Business Connectivity Services Architecture Microsoft SharePoint Client Microsoft Office Applications BDC Client Runtime Offline Operations Cache SharePoint Development Platform Business Intelligence Enterprise Content Management Collaboration Enterprise Search Model Store BDC Runtime Security Solution Packaging Out of the Box User Interface Dynamics SAP Seibel LOB Web 2.0

7. Lesson 2: Developing External Content Types and Lists by Using SharePoint Designer • Creating Connections to External Data • Creating External Content Types and Operations • Creating External Lists and Forms • Securing External Content Types

8. Creating Connections to External Data • Creating connections for external content types • Types of connections • SQL Server • WCF Web service • .NET type

9. Creating External Content Types and Operations • External Content Type Sources • Examples: Tables and views • View restrictions • External Content Type Operations • Create • Update • Delete • Finder • Specific Finder • Identifier fields • Show In Picker fields

10. Creating External Lists and Forms • External lists based on external content types • Forms associated with external content types for the list instance • New • Edit

11. Securing External Content Types • Administrators must use SharePoint Central Administration to secure external content types for users • Edit • Execute • Selectable In Clients • Set Permissions • Securing external content types for service accounts • Example: Crawl account(s)

12. Lesson 3: Developing Business Connectivity Services Solutions by Using Visual Studio 2010 • Visual Studio Scenarios for Business Connectivity Services Solutions • Creating Business Data Catalog Models • Business Data Catalog Entities and Type Descriptors • Implementing Business Data Catalog Methods

13. Visual Studio Scenarios for Business Connectivity Services Solutions • Creating .NET types for use in SharePoint Designer • Enable administrators to create solutions • Abstract potentially complex connections, such as custom security and complex data operations • Creating Business Data Catalog models • Implement potentially complex data operations • Avoid having to modify external systems

14. Creating Business Data Catalog Models • Visual Studio SharePoint project type • Entity Designer surface • Entity models and type descriptors • Entity classes • Entity service classes • Sample implementations

15. Business Data Catalog Entities and Type Descriptors • Entities and methods model • ReadList (Finder) and ReadItem (SpecificFinder) • Create (Creator), Update (Updater), and Delete (Deleter) • Identifier input parameters • Deleter and SpecificFinder methods • Entity input parameters • Creator and Updater methods • Return entity • SpecificFinder and Creator methods • Return entity Collection • Finder method

16. Implementing Business Data Catalog Methods public static MyEntityReadItem(intmyEntityID) { //Return a single entity based on the identifier input } public static IEnumerable<MyEntity> ReadList() { //Return a collection of entities } public static void Delete(intmyEntityID) { //Delete data based on the identifier input } public static void Update(MyEntitymyEntity) { //Update data based on the properties of the entity input } public static MyEntityCreate(MyEntitynewMyEntity) { //Add new data based on the properties of the entity input and //return an entity with the appropriate property values }

17. Lab: Building Business Connectivity Services Solutions • Exercise 1: Creating External Content Types and Lists by Using SharePoint Designer 2010 • Exercise 2: Creating Business Data Catalog Models by Using Visual Studio 2010 Logon information Estimated time: 90 minutes

18. Lab Review • What was the first thing you had to do in SharePoint Designer before you could create an external content type? • What operations did you create by using SharePoint Designer? • What type of Visual Studio project did you create? • Describe the main difference between the entities for the ReadList and ReadItem methods. • Which other methods did you implement?

19. Module Review • In this module, you have learned: • About Business Connectivity Services • To develop external content types and lists by using SharePoint Designer • To develop Business Connectivity Services solutions by using Visual Studio 2010