Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 Bible

15.4. Exploring SharePoint Data Sources

The focus now shifts to understanding the functions of SharePoint Designer when working with SharePoint sites. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the SharePoint Designer interface is primarily designed to provide easy access to all the data sources exposed by SharePoint. Also, as discussed previously, there are a large number of data sources that you can use when working with SharePoint sites.

NOTE

Unless specified, a SharePoint site in this section refers to both MOSS and WSS v3 sites. There are some SharePoint Designer features that are MOSS-specific and are noted when encountered.

15.4.1. Configuring data retrieval services

SharePoint implements a mechanism that allows data source controls to interact with a large number of data sources by using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and XML Web services. These services are called data retrieval services and are installed with SharePoint. You can control some functions of the data retrieval services by using the Operation section of the SharePoint Central Administration Web site. To access these settings, open the SharePoint Central Administration Web site by choosing Start Administrative Tools SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration on a SharePoint Web server and then choose Operations ...