The
BDC is essentially a catalog of business applications that are of interest to
SharePoint Server 2007 users, and it bridges the gap between the portal and
business applications by bringing in key data from various applications to
SharePoint sites, lists, search, and user profiles. The BDC is the key
infrastructural component around which most of the other business data features
of SharePoint Server 2007 are built. Administrators can register business
applications in the BDC, after which the data in the application is immediately
available to SharePoint through the business data features described below. A
key requirement for each registered business application is an XML-based
metadata model that describes the application programming interfaces (API) of
the application or the schema of the database that maps to business objects
(e.g. customer) and properties (e.g. name) that a SharePoint user can
understand. These metadata models can be easily created by DBAs or database
developers.
SharePoint Server 2007 ships with four
out-of-the-box Business Data Web Parts: Business Data List, Business Data
Items, Business Data Related List, and Business Data Actions. These Web Parts
rely on the Business Data Catalog, and their main purpose is to display
business data in a portal application without the need for any programming. Moreover,
these Web Parts are generic and can show any type of data (entity) registered
in the Business Data Catalog.
These Web Parts support Web Part Connections,
which enable Master-Detail types of data display – again, without any
programming. For example, you can display customers and their details using the
BusinessDataList and BusinessDataItems Web Parts.
Web
Part
|
Description
|
Business Data
List
Web Part
|
Displays a list
of entity instances from a business application registered in the Business
Data Catalog. For example, you can use a Business Data List Web Part to
display all the customers or orders from the AdventureWorksDW database.
|
Business Data
Items
Web Part
|
Displays the
details of an entity instance from a business application. For example, you
can use a Business Data Items Web Part to display the details of a particular
customer or order from the AdventureWorksDW database.
|
Business Data
Related List
Web Part
|
Displays a list
of related entity instances from a business application. For example, you can
use a Business Data Related List Web Part to display all the orders for a
particular customer from the AdventureWorksDW database.
|
Business Data
Actions
Web Part
|
Displays a list
of actions associated with an entity as defined in the Business Data Catalog.
For example, you can use a Business Data Actions Web Part to display all the
actions that portal users can perform on the Customer entity. Some examples
of these actions are to send e-mail to a customer or edit the address of a
customer.
|
Business Data in Lists
Windows SharePoint Services V3 provides
custom field types. SharePoint Server 2007 leverages this feature to provide a
new field type called Business Data that is available to all lists in
SharePoint Server 2007. The Business Data field type enables users to add data
from business applications registered in the Business Data Catalog to any
SharePoint list. For example, in your RFP (Request for Proposal) Document
Library, you can add a Business Data column to the document properties that
specifies the customer who issued the RFP. This enables users to view the
customer’s details and perform actions associated with them from within the
Document Library.
Business Data
Actions
You can define actions for each entity
in the Business Data Catalog. Some examples of actions for a customer entity
are to send e-mail to a customer or to edit the address of a customer. Business
Data Catalog implements actions as links that allow you to navigate to a URL
directly from the page where the entity or Business Data column is displayed.
For example, these links can open Web pages, display the native graphical user
interfaces (GUI) of line-of-business applications, and launch Microsoft® Office
InfoPath® forms.
Business
Application Search
By leveraging the Business Data
Catalog, the Search Center feature of SharePoint Server 2007 can gather and
index data from all of the registered business applications and provide
full-text searching. For example, after you register the AdventureWorksDW
sample database from SQL Server 2005 in the Business Data Catalog, the Search
Center feature can crawl the database and return customer data in search
results. In addition, the Search Center feature’s extensibility enables you to
create customized search experiences. For example, you can create a Customers
tab in the Search Center where users can search strictly for customers in the
AdventureWorksDW database.
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