BDC
I demonstrated how to make an external content type programmatically during the SPC 405 - Business Connectivity Services Runtime and Object Model Deep Dive session at the 2009 Microsoft SharePoint Conference. Since the conference I have received a couple of dozen emails about the this topic. Most of the emails ask for the code samples and an explanation of the code, and at least half of the emails inquire about when and why you may need to create an external content type programmatically. Because this is obviously a hot topic I decided to write it up in a blog post.
Sample...
In part 1of this blog post series I showed you how to create a .NET Assembly Connector to read data from a flat file. This blog post shows you how to register an external content type associated with a .NET Assembly Connector with the SharePoint search search service so you can index and search the data coming from the external content type.
The Business Context
As I mentioned in part 1 of this blog post series, it’s commonplace to find critical business data stored inside flat files in large, mature organizations. In addition to being able to browse the data inside web...
The Business Context
In many large organizations business data is stored inside of flat files from mainframes or other legacy systems. These systems chug along just fine everyday and support many key elements of the business; they aren’t going away anytime soon. Traditionally, accessing flat file data, making it viewable in a web pages, and making it searchable requires an enormous amount of custom code.
The Solution
New functionality inside SharePoint 2010’s Business Connectivity Services (BCS) makes it extremely easy to connect to flat file data sources (or any other data source), display it in web pages, and make it searchable. This...
It was quite a week in Las Vegas at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009! Wow, what a long way the product has come! I can remember several years ago speaking at SharePoint conferences and seeing only a few dozen people attending many of the sessions. That’s certainly not the case anymore. In fact, SharePoint has grown so much that now the conferences come complete with live bands and fireworks!
My wife and I embraced the 80’s spirit during the beach party Tuesday night at the Mandalay Bay. We were surprised to find only few handfuls of folks were taking the same...
New content was added to the www.mssharepointdeveloper.com web site last week! This content includes the SharePoint on the web modules and the much anticipated release of the AdventureWorks Travel Site installer!
Update: Download the installer here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/spotw/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=2702
The new SharePoint On The Web modules cover the following topics:
Getting Started with SharePoint Development on the Web
Site Structure and Branding
Custom Field Types and Mode
FBA Authentication
Web Interoperability
SharePoint Search
Content Deployment
Minimal Publishing Site Definition
...
Thanks to everyone who came to my Go Beyond With The BDC! session last week at the Microsoft TechEd 2009 North America conference! You can find the Site Template Package (STP) for the SharePoint site I used for my demos here. See this post for more details about the AdventureWorks Travel Site that I used to demonstrate Silverlight, SharePoint, and the BDC working together.
Andrew Connell and I will be posting the session materials from the session we co-presented - Extending the Content Query Web Part to Aggregate Data Across Site Collections and External Sources - sometime soon (this week or...
If you look hard enough you can find several articles on the Internet which describe different ways to enhance SharePoint User Profiles with the Business Data Catalog. Each of the articles takes a different approach to implementing this functionality, however none of the articles provide a prescriptive step by step approach and end to end example. This article is geared toward someone who has limited or no experience with the BDC and provides a prescriptive step by step approach and sample code.
The other articles I found on the Internet about this topic include the following, they are well worth reading.
...
I found out a few days ago that I'll be presenting at TechEd again this year. This year the Microsoft TechEd North America 2009 conference takes place in Los Angeles, CA. The event runs from May 11-15 and, as always, should be a great time to network, see friends from around the world, and learn some great things. This year I have two sessions on the schedule, the first of which I will be co-presenting with Andrew Connell (MOSS MVP). This session should be a whole lot of fun as Andrew and I walk you through the creation of...
If you missed my Creating Solutions With The Business Data Catalog session at TechEd last week, and you'd like to see the SilverLight / BDC integration demo I did there, come attend the SharePoint Web 2.0 FireStarter event next week on the Microsoft campus. Heck, come attend anyway, there are many great topics and presentations scheduled. I'll be presenting my demo at the tail end of Steve Fox's SilverLight on SharePoint session. You can see the complete schedule and register here.
Thanks to everyone who came to my session last week at the Microsoft TechEd 2008 North America Developer conference! It was really nice to see so many past students at the show and I enjoyed catching up with everyone. On Wednesday night I had the chance to hang out with many of the Microsoft MVPs and watch the Blues Brothers kick it at the House of Blues. Eric Shupps accompanied the Blues Brothers for a song, I wish I had a picture of it, I thought he did pretty well. :) I met Brett Lonsdale for the first time, Nick...
What a fun week it has been so far at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference! I just finished presenting my Creating Solutions with the Business Data Catalog (BDC) session and I'm looking forward to presenting my Creating Solutions with the MOSS Single Sign On Service session tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who came to my session today! All the code and materials for today's session are now available here. Enjoy!
Updated 11/12/2007: The code for my BDC session is now available and linked to below. Post-conference session materials have been distributed directly to post conference attendees.
I'd like to say thank you to everyone who attended my sessions so at this year's SharePoint Connections Conference. I met so many smart, easy going people at the conference, and the audiences were a real pleasure to present to. It's not a conference I will soon forget.
Click here, to download the SharePoint Toolkit application that I used during my SharePoint Object Model and Web Services Kick Start session.
Click here, to download the Site Template Package (stp file) for...
In order to pursue other opportunities, I've decided to end my involvement with the BDC Meta Man project.
For almost a year now I have been working on the BDC Meta Man project with Nick Swan and Dmitry Kaloshin. During this exciting time I forged strong relationships with Nick and Dmitry and enjoyed the experience very much. The entire experience was a positive one and I have nothing but good things to say about Nick and Dmitry. I am confident that Nick and Dmitry will create an even brighter future for the project, and I wish them both luck!
Thanks to everyone...
During the Create an Internet-Facing SharePoint Site session I covered the following topics.
Setting up forms based authentication.
Creating your own custom Master Pages and style sheets
Personalizing site content for users.
Leveraging the Business Data Catalog to surface and interact with back end systems.
Each of these topics is broken down more in depth in this blog post. All the code used during my demos can be found in the rar file linked at the end of this post.
Setting up forms based authentication
Because a...
First of all I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who came to my sessions last week! I had a wonderful time presenting my sessions to some great audiences and I really enjoyed meeting so many people after the sessions were over. I also enjoyed meeting many of the presenters and SharePoint MVPs at the conference. It was really nice to finally meet some of the folks who I have traded emails with for such a long time.
As I mentioned during the sessions, I'm following up on outstanding questions and comments in this post. I've broken down...