SharePoint 2010 Integration and Interoperability provides an overview of the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010. The BCS allows SharePoint to access external systems and content as an identity, search, and data access platform. It introduces key BCS concepts like external content types and external lists that can integrate external data into SharePoint and Office applications. The presentation demonstrates BCS functionality and also covers limitations to be aware of when using the BCS.

1. SharePoint 2010 Integration and Interoperability What You Need to Know Presented By: Richard Harbridge #BPC11 @RHarbridge

2. Who am I? I

3. Our Goal Today… From Here To Here

5. External Columns

6. External Lists

7. Extensibilityand Tooling4. Demonstration 5. Limitations of BCS Bonus!

8. Business Data Challenges

9. Business Data in an Enterprise IT High Integration Costs (Custom) High Overhead (Maintenance, Security) Quality Financial Customers Operations Suppliers Quality Financial Customers Operations Suppliers Redundant Data and Processes! Users High Training Costs High Dissatisfaction

10. Challengeswith Business Data Direct Impact Indirect Impact  

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

12. What to watch out for… No system, product or application can completely solve business data challenges.

13. SharePoint’s Important Interoperability

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

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

16. SharePoint Interoperability UI Platform Identity Platform Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

17. Is it a UI Platform? UI Platform Identity Platform Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

18. Why would we use SharePoint as a User Interface Platform?

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

20. 1. By adhering to published interface standards. It’s a UI Platform HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

21. A UI Platform Bonus? Bonus! HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Works in Office Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

22. Leverage Office and SharePoint Interface Familiarity

23. Is it an Identity Platform? HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Works in Office Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

24. Why would we use SharePoint as an Identity Platform?

25. 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.

27. It’s an Identity Platform HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Claims Works in Office Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

28. Is it aSearch Platform? HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Claims Works in Office Search Platform Data Access Platform Storage External Data

29. Why would we use SharePoint as a Search Platform?

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

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

32. A Search Platform Bonus! Bonus! HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Claims Works in Office Search Platform Open Search Data Access Platform Storage External Data

34. Syntax for executing queries

35. Results returned in RSS/ATOM + extensions

36. Supported by Microsoft Search Server 2008Clients: Windows 7, IE, FireFox, Chrome, SharePoint … Providers: Amazon, Flickr, Wikipedia, SharePoint…

37. It is a Search Platform HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Claims Works in Office Search Platform Open Search Data Access Platform Storage External Data

38. Is it a Data Access Platform? HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Claims Works in Office Search Platform Open Search Data Access Platform Storage External Data

39. SharePoint Does a Great Job of Accessing SharePoint Content!

40. What about External Systems and Content? _ _ _ B C S

41. A Data Access Platform Bonus! Bonus! x 2 HTML Standards UI Platform Identity Platform Claims Works in Office Search Platform Open Search CMIS Data Access Platform REST Storage External Data

43. Is designed to work over existing repositories enabling customers to build and leverage applications against multiple repositories—unlocking content they already have

44. Decouples Web services and content from the content management repository, enabling customers to manage content independently

45. Provides common Web services and Web 2.0 interfaces to dramatically simplify application development

46. Is development platform and language agnostic

47. Supports composite application development and mash-up by the business or IT analystA 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

49. Uses the ADO.NET Data Services interface conventions

50. Feature rich: retrieve, update, browse data using just URLs and XML/JSON

52. No client is required

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

55. 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

56. What is the BCS?

57. BCS External Data Benefits? External Data

58. You could look at this diagram… SharePoint Client BCS in Office Client Identity Federation service BCS in SharePoint BCS Meta Data Store BDC Client Data Cache BDC ASCustom Connector DB Connector WCF /WS Connector .NET Assembly Connector Client to Backend Direct Connection External data Persistence Store Data Cubes Custom .NET assembly SAP ORACLE Siebel SQL

59. Or this simplified one…

62. Visual Studio 2010

63. Via an Import into the Business Data Connectivity Service as part of a modelManage and Re-Use from a Central Location

64. 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”

65. Offline Lists External Lists also be leveraged as Offline “Lists” They can be Downloaded to a SharePoint Workspace as Lists or Word Document Libraries with External Data Columns Or Connected to Outlook as Contacts, Tasks, Calendars and Posts

66. Office Applications and Search External Content Types can also be leveraged in… Or Leveraged to allow for External Data Searching or Filtering Many other Office Applications (or Custom Applications) w/ Code

67. Bonus! Integration Webparts Bonus! Integration Webparts Web Parts External Data List External Data Item External Data Item Builder External Data Related List External Data Connectivity Filter Chart Web Part (New) w/ Code

68. Didn’t those webparts work with the BDC?

69. 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.

70. How do I actually build it out?

72. Use Custom Code to Integrate Data into any Office Application

73. Business Logic In Forms

75. Workflow

76. Web Part Pages

78. Connect those lists to Outlook, SPW

79. External Data ColumnsIntermediate Simple Advanced NO CODE “NO CODE” CODE SharePoint Designer SharePoint SDK Visual Studio Developer Power User Advanced Developer

81. Web services

83. Contact

84. Task

85. Appointment

87. Create Connectivity Packs in Visual Studio to

88. Aggregate data across multiple back-end systems

89. Perform custom data transformations

90. Execute custom business logic/rules (trigger workflow)

91. Bring External Data into other Office clients with VSTO Add-Ins (Excel)w/ Code

92. Suggested Life Cycle

93. BCS Support Matrix N/A x x In code In code In code In code In code

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

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

97. That’s a lot of information!

99. Demo!

100. Inventory Example

101. Inventory Example

102. Inventory Example

103. Permissions x x x x

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

105. 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’.

106. What are BCSLimitations?

108. You cannot write back to BLOB fields using BCS unless you write your own method.

110. Workaround: You can use the external data columns and manipulate it that way.

111. NoRSS feed support for external lists

112. No REST based access for external lists

113. http://sharepoint/_vti_bin/ListData.svc does not support external lists

114. LINQ to SharePoint spmetal.exe does not support external lists

115. Cannot configurealerts for external lists

116. Cannot export external list items to Excel (using the Export to Excel feature), Create Visio Diagram, Open with Access or Open with Project

117. Versioningcannot be configured on external lists

118. Version History is not available on external lists

119. Datasheet view cannot be used in external lists

120. XSLT is Supported (So you can basically make your own.)External Lists

122. Information policies cannot be configured on external lists

123. Item-Level permissions are not available for external lists

124. No item or field level validation (without InfoPath)

125. Lookups don’t work on any column but ID

126. No attachments.External Lists

129. No nested collections (array of arrays etc)

130. No support for multi dimension arrays

131. BDC only works with .Net 3.5 - No dynamic programming in .Net 4

132. No support for ICollection or IEnumerableinterfaces to represent collections in data structures (ICollection<T>, IEnumerable<T>, IList<T>…)http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621599.aspx

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

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

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

137. Blog: www.rharbridge.com

138. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rharbridge

139. Email me at: RHarbridge@Allin.com

140. My company: www.Allin.com