Creating No-Code BCS Solutions in SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010–From TechEd Middle East 2011

8 – 10 March 2011 | Dubai, UAE

8 – 10 March 2011 | Dubai, UAE

Ayman El-HattabSharePoint MVPTwitter: @AymanElHattab

Creating No-Code BCS Solutions in SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010

SESSION CODE: PRE104

Muhammed NabilTSP, Microsoft MEATwitter: @Muhammed_Nabil

Agenda

Business Connectivity Services (BCS) Overview

Demo: Contoso Sales OBA

Building No-Code OBA

Summary

Office Business Application (OBA) Overview

What is an Office Business Application?

OBA: An application that integrates Office Client and/or SharePoint with a LOB System

OBA: An application that extends a LOB System to the user level by means of powerful and familiar interfaces (And what is more familiar than office?)

A bit of Terminology…

• Business Connectivity Services – Connect to external LOB systems and surface data in SharePoint and Office (Read/Write)

• External Content Type (ECT) - The building block that describes:• Structure of the external system (Fields, Methods, Connection)• How this data behaves within SharePoint and Office

• Business Data Connectivity (BDC) – plumbing, runtime, connectivity

• Model – XML file (may contain more than one ECT)

Outlook Forms and Task PanesSharePoint External Lists

SharePoint Workspace

Search Results

External Content TypeThe building block

Office Applications

External Content TypeCustomer:

CustomerID FirstName LastName PhoneNumber EmailAddress

External data

A look under the hood!

SAP ORACLE Siebel

SQL

Custom .NET assembly

DBConnector

WCF/WSConnector

.NET AssemblyConnector

Client to Backend Direct Connection

BDC Client Runtime

ECT Repository

External data

Business Data Connectivity (BDC)

BDC Server Runtime

Client DataCache

Presntation in SharePoint

ECT

Office 2010 Client

SharePoint Server 2010

External (CRM) Systems

Contoso Sales OBA

SalesDatabaseSOA Layer

(Web Services)

What is business our scenario..?

I’m Ayman a sales rep for Contoso and will be travelling on the road…

- Check product availability and create a new quote document from SharePoint Workspace

3

- Receive e-mail from customer requesting a quote- In Outlook, learn more about customer’s sales history

2

- Fill out the quote in Word, send it to the customer

4

- Prepare for the upcoming trip by installing the OBA on the Laptop and syncing data

1

- Sync with corporate network

5

Contoso OBA in ActionDemo

Building the OBA

Create Word Doc Lib with External Data

Columns

2

Create External Content Types,

Associations and Lists

1

Create Outlook SolutionPackage

3

Building the OBA

Create Outlook SolutionPackage

3

Create Word Doc Lib with External Data

Columns

2

Create External Content Types,

Associations and Lists

1

External Content Types (ECTs) in SharePoint Designer

Define ECT operations and data fields• Describe the external source capabilities by mapping to CRUD operations• Describe the data schema available to SharePoint and Office by mapping

parameters/columns• Describe the Association between the External Content Types.

Define ECT behavior in SharePoint and Office• Map ECT fields to Office Item types• Enable/Disable Offlining

Create External Content TypesConnect to WCF

Configure ECT Connectivity

ECTECT

CustomerOrders

Association

Adding Associations Between External Content Types

Association in SharePoint 2010

Adding Associations Between External Content Types

Association in Office 2010

Creating the ECTs, associations and listsDemo

Building the OBA

Create External Content Types,

Associations and Lists

1

Create Outlook SolutionPackage

3

Create Word Doc Lib with External Data

Columns

2

Create Word Document Library with External Data Columns

SPD or Browser

• Create a new Document Library• Add External Data Column and Lookup Fields• Create Word Template for Document Library• Use Quick Parts to embed external data in Word Template• Save Template back to Library

Access External Data from within Word and Document Libraries

Creating the Sales Quote Word TemplateDemo

Building the OBA

Create External Content Types,

Associations and Lists

1

Create Word Doc Lib with External Data

Columns

2

Create Outlook SolutionPackage

3

Creating Outlook Solution Package

The Easy Way!

• Download BCS Artifact Generator and BCS Packaging Tool from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/odcsps14bcsgnrtrtool &http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/odcsps14bcspkgtool

• Export External Content Types from SharePoint Designer• Create the needed artifacts using BCS Artifacts Generator• Package into .vsto using BCS Packaging Tool

Extend Outlook with custom ribbon, forms, taskpanes and actions

Creating the Sales Outlook ExtensionsDemo

Session Summary

• It’s easy to build OBA’s without writing code• SPD provides simple wizard-based UI to connect to external data sources• External Lists enable you to richly integrate external data into SharePoint• Outlook and SPW allow you to work with external data while offline• Use Quick Parts to embed external data in Word Templates (Works in

Offline mode too)• BCS Artifacts Generator and BCS Packaging Tool can make your life easy!

Connect with us

• Blogs:www.aymanelhattab.com blogs.technet.com/meacoexwww.sharepoint4arabs.com

• Follow us on twitter@AymanElHattab@Muhammed_Nabil

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8 – 10 March 2011 | Dubai, UAE

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