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SharePoint 2007: BDC - The Business Data Catalog

This post is in continuation to a series of blogposts I put up on BDC - the Business Data Catalog.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

In-built Webparts

• A simple "Hello World" example
• Extending the "Hello World" example
• Extending the "Hello World" example even further - adding specific finders.
• Introducing custom actions on your entities
• Introducing associations between multiple entities

Lists with Business data type columns.

Search

User Profiles <-- You are here

Other custom applications targeting a common runtime object model.

Making it easier to author XML Applications: BDCMetaMan

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So here is the #1 most important thing to consider about importing user profiles from BDC. BDC cannot act as the primary source for user profile information. BDC can only work as a supplementary data source, in other words, you must have an import connection setup with say Active Directory or something else, before you can choose to supplement that information from BDC. BDC cannot be your master import connection.

This has various implications depending upon your setup. For instance (and this is just an instance), if you are using custom forms authentication, chances are, you wouldn't want to import profiles from an Active Directory. Hey, if you choose to use Forms Auth, there is a pretty darned good chance that your user profile data store isn't the AD anyway. And if that is the case, in order to supplement the user profile information, you would like to/want to setup a BDC application as the data source, but it's not gonna work. You will instead have to write a custom application to import that information.

Okay good, now once I have that out of my system, here is how you would use BDC to act as a supplementary data source for your user profile information.

1. First, the test environment you will need must be a a sharepoint server in a domain. Once you have that setup, go ahead and setup user profile import.
2. Now, let us assume that you have "City" information for your users in the Northwind app. Each user in your sharepoint setup corresponds to a customer in northwind (I am totally making this up of course). And what you'd like to do is, find the appropriate customer (entity) from the BDC you have already setup, and look up the city from the entity, and plop that into a property called "NorthwindCity". Here is how you'd do that.
1. Under the SSP, go to User Profiles and My Sites/User profiles and properties.
2. Click on "Add profile property". Add a new property called "NorthwindID". The point being, each user profile will already have a NorthwindID populated, and this information will be used to match-up with the entity's identifier. This will allow me to call the SpecificFinder on the entity, and retreive other details about a specific entity.
3. Next, back in User Profiles and Properties, go to "View Import connections". Click "Create New Connection".
4. Create a new connection called NorthWind that is based on the BDC. Choose to target Customer (NorthwindTraders). To keep things simple, use a 1:1 mapping, and choose "Return Items identified by this profile property: NorthwindID". (You see what I'm getting at here? read step #2 again).
5. Next, add another profile property called NorthwindCity. BUT, at the bottom of the page, set up "Property Import Mapping" to look like this -
   
   So essentially what you are saying is, the "NorthwindCity" property will be populated by not the master import connection but, the Northwind connection. This is what you setup in step #4. Also, when you do import from the Northwind connection, map the City of the Entity to NorthwindCity.
6. Now, go back to any profile you like in the SSP, and setup a dummy test entity. Change it's NorthwindID to "ALFKI".
7. Now back in the SSP/User Profiles and Properties, click on "Start full import".
8. Go back to the entity you setup the NorthwindID in step #6. Assuming that your BDC is setup properly, you will see that the NorthwindCity has been populated to "Berlin".