SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog

SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog

by Nick Swan, Brett Lonsdale
Released September 2009
Publisher(s): Manning Publications
ISBN: 9781933988818

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Book description

The data locked in your organization's systems and databases is a precious—and sometimes untapped—resource. The SharePoint Business Data Catalog makes it easy to gather, analyze, and report on data from multiple sources, through SharePoint. Using standard web parts, an efficient management console, and a simple programming model, you can build sites, dashboards, and applications that maximize this business asset.

SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog is a practical, example-rich guide to the features of the BDC and the techniques you need to build solutions for end users. The book starts with the basics—what the BDC is, what you can do with it, and how to pull together a BDC solution. With the fundamentals in hand, it explores the techniques and ideas you need to put BDC into use effectively in your organization.



About the Technology


About the Book


What's Inside
  • The BDC Object Model
  • How to build BDC applications
  • BDC-driven search
  • Integrating with Office, CRM, and InfoPath


About the Reader

Knowledge of SharePoint Server and WSS is required.



About the Authors

Brett Lonsdale and Nick Swan are the founders of Lightning Tools, a UK-based SharePoint consulting company specializing in the SharePoint Business Data Catalog.



Quotes
This book is an absolute must-have!
- Christina Wheeler, SharePoint Consultant, Summit 7 Systems

...from experts who know the BDC inside and out.
- Monty Grusendorf, Senior Web Developer, Bantrel

An excellent guide for working with the BDC.
- Darren Niemke, Author of "ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts in Action"

A one-stop guide for SharePoint BDC developers.
- Prajwal Khanal, SharePoint BDC developers

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. Preface
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. About this Book
    1. How this book is organized
    2. Who should read this book
    3. How to use this book
      1. Source code conventions and downloads
  5. Online Resources
  6. About the Cover Illustration
  7. 1. Introducing the Business Data Catalog
    1. 1.1. Life before the Business Data Catalog
      1. 1.1.1. Data View Web Part
      2. 1.1.2. Custom web part
      3. 1.1.3. Third-party components
    2. 1.2. What’s the Business Data Catalog?
      1. 1.2.1. Business Data Web Parts
        1. Business Data List Web Part
        2. Business Data Related List Web Part
        3. Business Data Actions Web Part
        4. Business Data Item Web Part
        5. Business Data Item Builder Web Part
      2. 1.2.2. Business Data column
      3. 1.2.3. Business Data Search
      4. 1.2.4. User profile import
      5. 1.2.5. Custom solutions
    3. 1.3. BDC architecture
    4. 1.4. Data sources and how we connect to them
      1. 1.4.1. Oracle and SQL
      2. 1.4.2. Web services
      3. 1.4.3. Other data sources
      4. 1.4.4. Application definition file
    5. 1.5. Summary
  8. 2. Understanding the application definition file
    1. 2.1. Introducing the application definition file
      1. 2.1.1. LOBSystem section
      2. 2.1.2. LOBSystemInstances section
        1. Authentication Mode Property
        2. Databaseaccessprovider Property
      3. 2.1.3. Entities
      4. 2.1.4. Filter descriptors
      5. 2.1.5. Parameters
        1. Input Parameters
        2. Output Parameters
        3. Method Instances
        4. Association Methods
        5. Problems With Associations
      6. 2.1.6. Business Data Catalog actions
    2. 2.2. Creating an application definition file
    3. 2.3. Summary
  9. 3. Security
    1. 3.1. Authentication
      1. 3.1.1. Integrated Windows Authentication
      2. 3.1.2. Configuring Single Sign-On
        1. Step 1: Configure the Single Sign-On Service
        2. Step 2: Manage the Setting for Single Sign-On
        3. Step 3: Manage the Encryption Key
        4. Step 4: Create an Application Definition
        5. Step 5: Manage Account Information for an Enterprise Application Definition
        6. Step 6: Edit the Application Definition File to Include SSO
      3. 3.1.3. Kerberos
        1. Configuring Kerberos
    2. 3.2. Permissions
    3. 3.3. Exercise: employing RevertToSelf authentication
    4. 3.4. Summary
  10. 4. Out-of-the-box BDC Web Parts
    1. 4.1. The purpose of the out-of-the-box web parts
      1. 4.1.1. Business Data List Web Part
      2. 4.1.2. Business Data Item Web Part
      3. 4.1.3. Business Data Filter Web Part
      4. 4.1.4. Other out-of-the-box BDC Web Parts
    2. 4.2. Using SharePoint Designer with the Business Data List Web Part
      1. 4.2.1. Number formatting
      2. 4.2.2. Conditional formatting
      3. 4.2.3. Modifying the columns using Microsoft SharePoint Designer
    3. 4.3. Sorting, grouping, and filtering
      1. 4.3.1. The View footer
      2. 4.3.2. Tweaking the XSL
    4. 4.4. Exercise: joining two web parts
    5. 4.5. Summary
  11. 5. Using the Business Data field type in lists and libraries
    1. 5.1. The Business Data field type
      1. 5.1.1. Using the Business Data field type
      2. 5.1.2. The ShowInPicker property
      3. 5.1.3. The Business Data column with a view
    2. 5.2. Customizing the Document Information panel with InfoPath 2007
    3. 5.3. Creating a SharePoint custom field type
    4. 5.4. Summary
  12. 6. Configuring BDC search
    1. 6.1. Configuring the ADF to allow searching
    2. 6.2. Setting up crawling
    3. 6.3. Building a custom Search Results page
    4. 6.4. Exploring the search web parts
      1. 6.4.1. Search Box Web Part
      2. 6.4.2. Search Summary Web Part
      3. 6.4.3. Search Action Links Web Part
      4. 6.4.4. Search Best Bets Web Part
      5. 6.4.5. Search Statistics Web Part
      6. 6.4.6. Search Paging Web Part
      7. 6.4.7. Search High Confidence Results Web Part
      8. 6.4.8. Search Core Results Web Part
    5. 6.5. Modifying the core Search Results page
    6. 6.6. The Search API
      1. 6.6.1. Security trimming the search results
    7. 6.7. Summary
  13. 7. MOSS user profiles
    1. 7.1. Exploring SharePoint user profiles
      1. 7.1.1. Identifying colleagues
      2. 7.1.2. Searching user profiles
      3. 7.1.3. Audience targeting
    2. 7.2. Configuring user profiles
    3. 7.3. Audience targeted web parts
    4. 7.4. Summary
  14. 8. The ApplicationRegistry namespace
    1. 8.1. Understanding the ApplicationRegistry namespace
      1. 8.1.1. Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration
      2. 8.1.2. Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Infrastructure
      3. 8.1.3. Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.MetadataModel
      4. 8.1.4. Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Runtime
      5. 8.1.5. Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.SystemSpecific.db
    2. 8.2. Creating a WCF web service to expose BDC data
    3. 8.3. Using the BDC API with a WF workflow
      1. 8.3.1. Types of workflow supported by SharePoint
        1. Visual Studio Workflows
        2. Design and Plan the Workflow
        3. Author the Workflow in Visual Studio
        4. Debugging the Workflow
        5. Author the Feature for the Workflow
        6. Package the Workflow into a WSP for Easy Deployment
    4. 8.4. Summary
  15. 9. Creating a custom BDC Web Part
    1. 9.1. Building a basic custom web part
    2. 9.2. Adding the functional code
      1. 9.2.1. The Ajax-style refresh interval
    3. 9.3. Creating a code access security file
    4. 9.4. Summary
  16. 10. Integrating the Business Data Catalog with Microsoft Office
    1. 10.1. An introduction to Office Business Applications (OBA)
      1. 10.1.1. Overcoming an everyday problem with OBA
      2. 10.1.2. Collaboration of applications
    2. 10.2. Where does the Business Data Catalog fit in?
      1. 10.2.1. Outlook
      2. 10.2.2. Excel
      3. 10.2.3. Word
    3. 10.3. Summary
  17. 11. Writing back to the line-of-business system
    1. 11.1. An introduction to writing back to the BDC
    2. 11.2. Creating custom web parts to update LOB data
      1. 11.2.1. Wiring up the web parts
      2. 11.2.2. Configuring the web parts with BDC Meta Man
    3. 11.3. Using InfoPath 2007 to write back to the LOB system
    4. 11.4. Summary
  18. A. Connecting to SAP with the BDC
    1. A.1. The benefits of using the BDC to expose SAP data
    2. A.2. How to connect the BDC to SAP
    3. A.3. Summary
  19. B. Connecting to Oracle with BDC
    1. B.1. Configuring Single Sign-On
    2. B.2. Installing the Oracle client
  20. C. Connecting to data sources with web services
    1. C.1. Creating web methods
    2. C.2. Testing the web service
    3. C.3. Summary

Product information

  • Title: SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog
  • Author(s): Nick Swan, Brett Lonsdale
  • Release date: September 2009
  • Publisher(s): Manning Publications
  • ISBN: 9781933988818