SharePoint 2007: BDC - The Business Data Catalog

Posted on 4/24/2007 @ 5:20 AM in #SharePoint | 18 comments | 47105 views

Tommorow evening, Carl & I will be recording Episode #4 of DNRTV:SharePoint 2007. For those who are interested, also checkout DNRTV: SharePoint #1, DNRTV: SharePoint #2, & DNRTV: SharePoint #3. BDC is one of those topics that you just have to leave back the code you used in the demos. So I am chugging out a number of blog posts this weekend describing BDC, and I will be referencing these in DNRTV. So, here goes.

What is BDC?

Microsoft definition: BDC is a new feature in MOSS 2007, it provides you with an easy way to integrate line of business data in MOSS 2007, without any code.
Sahil defintion: BDC is a really cool thing available in the relatively more expensive versions of MOSS. If anything is accessible using an ADO.NET provider, or a web service, that data can be brought into SharePoint, and then you can use it in one of the following ways -

In subsequent blogposts, I will cover the above one-by-one, and provide links to the above one by one.


On 9/17/2007 2:13:34 PM Melissa said ..
I currently have an excel spreadsheet that has one page of charts, followed by multiple tabs for the supporting work. Can you PLEASE help me find the easiest way to post that to my sharepoint site? I would truly appreciate any help you can provide!


On 1/4/2008 5:18:40 AM PANKAJ LAHOTI said ..
hai


Installed bdc meta but while getting set up i m geting eror as

"ASSEMBLY NOT FOUND... AND HR,PUBLIC KEY TOKEN ......


On 2/15/2008 4:15:42 AM dhk said ..
I have the prob on xml when querying with result result ora-12704.


my bdc need to connect to oracle 8.x which the search key was defined as varchar2.


and my parameters are defined as System.String


do u khow how to solve this issue.


On 3/3/2008 4:46:32 AM Steve Clements said ..
Hi Sahil,


Can BDC be used to get data from a WCF service? If so, have you got an links to the beautiful XML that could help me!?


On 3/3/2008 10:38:44 AM Sahil Malik said ..
Steve,

You can! But you have to first write the service targeting the OM.

SM


On 4/29/2008 11:46:32 PM Shilpa said ..
Hi, I want to take data from Peoplesoft CRM into SharePoint. Can I do it through BDC.


On 7/10/2008 10:26:18 AM Chris Eyre said ..
The Sahil defintion is not entirely accurate.


It is rather difficult to use any ADO.NET provider.


You can use:

-ODBC


-SqlServer


-OLEDB


-Oracle

that's all folks!

I am trying to get the BDC to talk to Sybase via the OleDb provider.


This is far more painful than it needs to be!


Even the tools don't cope with the OleDb option.

Oh and in answer to the above question of can BDC call data from a WCF service - yes, expose a Webservice endpoint and suck the data in from that.


On 7/17/2008 11:10:12 AM gary b said ..

On 7/17/2008 11:11:01 AM gary b said ..

On 10/30/2008 4:21:33 AM Hafees said ..
What is the real advantages of BDC and What is real time usage?


On 12/17/2008 5:11:03 PM Ryan Singer said ..
Hello all,

I want to simply access SQL backend data from my (flat and dimensional) data warehouse. Is there really no way to simply connect to a SQL database from Sharepoint?


On 2/3/2009 10:32:15 AM USER said ..
I am net to BDC Concept in Sharepoint :(


I wanna learn it !


On 2/25/2009 8:33:50 PM ikram said ..
bdc data picker returns garbage i.e. (__bg40004300) in the list column. picker displays the data and filters without any problems, but once i select the data and click ok, it returns garbage in the column, anyone please advise?


On 3/5/2009 12:55:30 PM Gilles Sylvestre said ..
Hello,

I have a project where I need to perform cascading lookup in a NewForm.

For example, I have three fields in a list: Manufacturer, Year and Model. All three fields are lookups. The last field (Model) is a lookup on the model list where Manufacturer an Year are past as parameters to the querry.

In order to do that, we wrote some code and some JS. It's woorking fine.

I am evaluating the BDC potential for our projects. In your opinion, is it possible to achive that (cascading lookup) with the BDC.

Regards


Gilles


On 3/5/2009 12:56:08 PM Gilles Sylvestre said ..
Hello,

I have a project where I need to perform cascading lookup in a NewForm.

For example, I have three fields in a list: Manufacturer, Year and Model. All three fields are lookups. The last field (Model) is a lookup on the model list where Manufacturer an Year are past as parameters to the querry.

In order to do that, we wrote some code and some JS. It's woorking fine.

I am evaluating the BDC potential for our projects. In your opinion, is it possible to achive that (cascading lookup) with the BDC.

Regards


Gilles


On 5/2/2009 1:11:54 AM Dalvir Saini said ..
Hi..


I wants to write a Application Definition File for BDC using WCF Services. So that i can save/update database. How can define methods in ADF for saving data if i m using the WCF service methods(SaveData(string empname, string empadd)) for saving data.


Please Help me.


Thanks & Regards


Dalvir Saini


On 5/2/2009 1:18:04 AM Dalvir Saini said ..
Hi..


can you send me some exampel code of WCF service for saving data and Application Definition File for BDC on my id dsingh@snlcorporate.com.


Thanks & Regards


Dalvir Saini


On 5/11/2010 9:59:13 PM WSS Newbie said ..
Is it possible to get data from a SQL DB into a list in Windows sharepoint Services v3?


thanks


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