Business Data Catalog - Follow-up from Convergence

Ben Vollmer — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:21:00 GMT

So I know that this way overdue. Way. After Convergence, I came back and went on vacation and then Beth was in the hospital for an unexpected week. There is a decent summation of the event from Brian Willson of the Microsoft Chemicals Team. http://blogs.msdn.com/chemicals/archive/2008/03/13/a-good-dynamics-crm-blog.aspx

I have since seen that Simon has posted some code on creation of MOSS Sites using Workflow. http://blogs.msdn.com/ukcrm/archive/2008/04/27/creating-sharepoint-sites-with-crm-workflow.aspx so I am not going to spend any time on that as he did a killer job documenting it.

One of the biggest areas I got a ton of questions on was the Business Data Catalog, which is a new feature introduced in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, provides an easy way to integrate business data from back-end server applications, such as Microsoft, within Office SharePoint Server 2007 without writing any code. This link contains overview information and step-by-step, how-to procedures for programming with the Business Data Catalog.

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. (An Awesome overview of BDC can be found here.)

Hand writing the BDC Definitions can mentally taxing. A cool tool to do this for you is: BDC Meta Man. http://www.bdcmetaman.com/Pages/microsoftpage.aspx

If you want to practice your skills before trying them on a client, you may want to check out the Virtual Labs, where you will learn how to build the metadata file that will connect SharePoint Server 2007 to the SQL Server 2005 AdventureWorksDW database. You will also learn how to register the AdventureWorksDW metadata file with SharePoint Server 2007. http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032331910&EventCategory=3&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

A Nice Step by Step as published by Rehman Gul is located here.

Attached is a sample BDC you can use to Demo.

Where are you staying for Convergence?

Ben Vollmer — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:43:35 GMT

A bunch of from the East Region have ditched the hotels this year. :-) There is a new condo development about a 1/2 mile away from the convention center. My family stayed there for TechEd last May. I highly recommend it. We got a 3 bedroom 3 bath for about 200 a night, which was cheaper than the close in hotels. (And it is a townhouse. http://www.vistacayholidays.com/townhouse/index.htm)

Most of the condos are privately owned, so you can find them on a number of sites. We found ours at: http://www.vistacayholidays.com/

Drop me a line if this is where you book.... I know Ron, Craig and Chris are all booked here as are several partners..... Would love to have a block party.... :)

East Region Microsoft CRM Blog : Convergence

Business Data Catalog - Follow-up from Convergence

Where are you staying for Convergence?