SharePoint Content and Resources : BDC

SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peak Now Available!

randalli — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:19:00 GMT

Cross-posting from Paul Andrew's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2009/07/13/sharepoint-2010-sneak-peek.aspx

There are sneak peak videos on this site for Developers and IT Professionals, as well as a general overview of SharePoint 2010: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx

Here's a direct link to the Developer sneak peak video: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/Developer-Video.aspx

SharePoint SDK 1.5 (April 2009) Released!

randalli — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:28:00 GMT

Greetings, SharePoint Developers!

We are excited to announce the availability of the latest updates to the online MSDN Library + the downloadable SDKs for both MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0!

The April 2009 (1.5) Update is available both online and as a download.

> Download the MOSS SDK 1.5 <

> View the MOSS SDK 1.5 Documentation on MSDN <

> Download the WSS SDK 1.5 <

> View the WSS SDK 1.5 Documentation on MSDN <

Which SDK do I need to download?

If you are only writing code that utilizes the Windows SharePoint Services platform, you can download the WSS SDK. However, if you want the superset of all documentation and samples, you should install the MOSS SDK, and then you’ll get all the platform information as well. You don’t need to download both, but you will need to uninstall all previous versions before installing.

Note The SDK 1.5 downloads are full releases that include all previous tools and documentation.

What’s New in this release?

The SDK updates in 1.5 include:

New version of the Microsoft Business Data Catalog Definition Editor tool

Bug fixes for field truncation issues and parameter limits.

· Updated documentation files:
What’s New in the MOSS SDK 1.5 Documentation
What’s New in the WSS SDK 1.5 Documentation

While you’re updating your SharePoint development tools…

You can also update the Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint Services. Here is the link to the latest CTP: Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.3 - Mar 2009 CTP. The extensions were updated on 3/17/2009.

Don’t forget to download the user’s guide: version 1.1

Please keep sending us feedback!

We want to make sure you have all the information you expect to find in the SDK. Please reply to this blog entry with comments if you have a request. And don't forget to use the Community Content Wiki on MSDN to annotate the SDK documentation online with your own insights or additional code samples, remarks, etc. Just look toward the bottom of each page online or click the Add Content... button in the top-level menu on MSDN Library pages.

Just Published: Major Update to the MOSS and WSS Downloadable SDKs (8/22/2007)

randalli — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:11:00 GMT

Hello SharePoint Developers!

We are very proud to announce a major update to the MOSS and WSS Software Development Kit (SDK) downloads. You can install them from the following locations:

· MOSS 2007 SDK 1.2. Includes Conceptual and Class Library Reference documentation, Web Services documentation, and Developer Tools and Samples for MOSS and WSS. See below for a detailed breakdown what’s new in this release.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en

· WSS 3.0 SDK 1.2. Includes Conceptual and Class Library Reference documentation, Web Services documentation, and Developer Tools and Samples for WSS technology only. See below for a detailed breakdown what’s new in this release.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05E0DD12-8394-402B-8936-A07FE8AFAFFD&displaylang=en

What’s New in this Release

We are constantly improving the SDK releases as a direct response to customer feedback. Let us know your requests for future releases! Here is a detailed breakdown of changes to the SDK and its contents.

Windows SharePoint Services SDK Documentation Enhancements

We have doubled our resources on the WSS SDK documentation, and we have been working around the clock to provide you with greatly expanded coverage on the SDK documentation. A full breakdown of new and improved sections for the platform documentation can be found in the WSS SDK Welcome topic; here is the link to the online version: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms441339.aspx.

Start Menu Navigation

This release features a new Start Menu shortcut that gives you quick access to documentation (compiled HTML Help, or CHM for short) files and the Welcome Page (ReadMe.htm), which is a landing page with links out to all the tools and samples.

Installation Improvements

You now have a choice of installation location when you’re installing the SDK. You can browse to your preferred folder during setup. The default installation path for MOSS is C:\Program Files\2007 Office System Developer Resources\. The default installation path for WSS is C:\Program Files\Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK\.

Offline Experience Improvements

We packaged up all of our Technical Articles, Visual How-to Articles, and Book Excerpts—plus the Excel Services and Excel 2007 Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Job Submission Developer Guide into one searchable CHM file. Now you can browse offline for content that has been published on MSDN out-of-band with the SDK.

Known Issue: There are several links in the MOSSSDK_TechArticles.chm and the WSSSDK_TechArticles.chm that will not work in a strictly offline scenario. Also, we did not package up the WMV file screencasts or the associated downloads that go with articles, so that we could keep the download size manageable. The workaround for both issues is to browse to the content online; for ease-of-use, the TOC in the CHM file is the same as the TOC on MSDN.

New Tools Included with the MOSS SDK

We rounded out our tool set in this release to include developer tools and samples for the following areas of MOSS development. New tools and samples are in bold.

· Business Data Catalog Samples and Utilities

o Microsoft Business Data Catalog Definition Editor

o Sample Pluggable SSO Provider

o WSHelloWorld Web Service

o WSOrders Web Service

o Excel Services User Defined Function Sample

o WSOrders Custom Proxy Sample

o Amazon Web Service Sample

o AdventureWorks Metadata Samples

o SAP Sample

· Document Management and Content Processing Samples

o Comment Scrub Document Converter

o Term Replacement Document Inspector

· Search Samples

o Sample Protocol Handler

o Custom Content Source

· Records Management and Policy Samples

o De-Duplication Router

o Document Integrity Verifier

o Records Center Web Service Console Application

o Search, Collect, and Hold Tool

o Sample Custom Barcode Generator

o IRM Document Protector

· Workflow Samples

o Custom Workflow Report Query Generator

o Custom Workflow Report XLSX Injector

o Visual Studio Workflow Templates

o Enterprise Content Management Workflow Activities

o List Item Activities

o Hello World Sequential Workflow

o State Based Approval Workflow

o Modification Workflow

o Replication and Contact Selector Workflow

o Intersystem Purchase Order

o Confidential Approval Workflow

o Group Approval Workflow

o Approval Workflow Sample

o Multi-Stage Workflow

o Server-side Collect Signatures Workflow

Full details can be found in the Welcome Guide of the SDK, accessible through the Start Menu.

SDK Documentation Update Details

We now have close to 90% completion of all Type descriptions in the SDK Class Library Reference. Nearly all of the remaining blanks in the API reference are either Internal Namespaces and Classes or low priority APIs, and we are working to get those tagged appropriately for a future release.

Updates to the MOSS SDK conceptual topics include:

· How to: Customize RSS for the Content Query Web Part (new)

· How to: Create a Minimal Master Page (revised)

· Provisioning Portal Sites (revised)

· Portal Site Template File (revised)

· Portal (Portal Site Template) (revised)

· Webs (Portal Site Template) (revised)

· Web (Portal Site Template) (revised)

· How to Create a Web Service Connection by using the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor (new)

· How to Create a Database Connection by using the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor (new)

Updates to the MOSS SDK Class Library and Web Service Reference include:

· Microsoft.Office.Workflow.ISoapServerWorkflow

· Microsoft.Office.Workflow.IWorkflow

· Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Workflow

· Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures.IBarCodeGenerator

· Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.InformationPolicy.IPolicyFeatures

· Workflow Web service

Viewing the SDK Documentation Online

We are currently in synch with our online and offline documentation, but you will always find Community Content on MSDN appended to core Microsoft documentation in the form of Wiki comments.

You can browse the SDK online through the following links:

· Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK

· Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK

Keep the feedback coming!

-Randall and the SharePoint SDK team

Tons of New SharePoint Content Now Live on MSDN - July 12, 2007

randalli — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:36:00 GMT

Hello folks.

It has been several weeks since I posted an update on new MSDN content. We have been extremely busy publishing content, and here is the list of content published in the month of June and the first week of July:

Visual How-to Screencasts

· Creating Search Queries Programmatically by using the Search Web Service in SharePoint Server 2007
By Patrick Tisseghem

· Creating Search Queries Programmatically by using the Search Object Model in SharePoint Server 2007
By Patrick Tisseghem

· Exposing Enterprise Search in SharePoint Server 2007 by using Internet Explorer 7 and the Office Research Pane
By Patrick Tisseghem

Technical Articles

· Development Tools and Techniques for Working with Code in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
By Patrick Tisseghem

o Part 1: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530302.aspx

o Part 2: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530301.aspx

· Using the Business Data Catalog and Smart Tags with the 2007 Office System
by Scot Hilier and Bhushan Nene (Microsoft Corp.)

o Accompanying Download for the Business Data Catalog and Smart Tags article

· Evaluating and Customizing Search Relevance in SharePoint Server 2007
by Dmitriy Meyerzon, Avi Schmueli, and Jo-Anne West (Microsoft Corp.)

· Using Forms Solutions in Groove 2007
by Josh Mahoney

· Upgrading an MCMS 2002 Application to SharePoint Server 2007
by Microsoft Corp.

o Part 1: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466172.aspx

o Part 2: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466171.aspx

Developer Guides

· Excel Services and Excel 2007 Windows Compute Cluster Server Job Submission Sample Developer Guide

· Excel Services and Excel 2007 Windows Compute Cluster Server Job Submission Sample (Download)

Book Excerpts

o Chapter 3: Customizing and Extending the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Search (Part 1 of 2)
By Patrick Tisseghem

o Chapter 3: Customizing and Extending the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Search (Part 2 of 2)
By Patrick Tisseghem

o Chapter 6: Integrating Spreadsheets into the Enterprise

Downloadable White Papers

· Windows white paper: Software Update for Web Folders (Download)

Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map

Check this out if you haven’t already seen it! It’s a Windows Presentation Foundation-based, interactive developer map like the ones we have available for download. It also has dynamic content via RSS feeds, so you can always get the most up-to-date information. So cool!

· http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb497969.aspx

Keep the feedback coming! We want to hear from you.

10 Office Visual How-to Screencasts Now Published for MOSS!

randalli — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:13:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I announced the arrival of a new content type: the Office Visual How-to Screencast. Now instead of 3 of them we have published 10 for MOSS!

Search

Creating a Custom Search Page and Tabs in the Search Center of SharePoint Server by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
The Search Center is a new type of site that is included by default in the site collection when you provision a collaboration portal. Its goal is to provide users with a customized search experience, and to replace the search box that is available at the top of the pages in the portal. There are two editions of the Search Center: the Search Center Lite and the Search Center with Tabs. The Search Center Lite is typically added to site collections where the publishing features are not activated. An example is a site collection with only team sites. The Search Center with Tabs offers a full customization using a tab-based user interface, but it requires the publishing features to be active. This is the case by default within collaboration portals. This article covers two customization options that can be performed in the Search Center with Tabs: how to add custom search pages and tabs, and, how to replace the XSLT for the search results with a custom XSLT.
Creating and Exposing Managed Properties in the Advanced Search Page of SharePoint Server Enterprise Search by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
Lists and document libraries in SharePoint sites typically have extra columns defined for them. This custom metadata is collected by the crawler when it indexes the contents of these containers. Administrators can expose this custom metadata to the users who perform search queries in the Search Center. The Advanced Search page has a property picker that can be populated with managed properties. This article explains and illustrates how to expose managed properties to the user, and also explains how developers can programmatically create managed properties.
Creating and Exposing Search Scopes in SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Search by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
Search scopes in SharePoint Server 2007 are used to narrow the search results returned to users executing a search query. Search scopes can be shared or locally defined. You can use different rules in the definition of a search scope, from simply scoping based on a content source to more complex scoping with conditions using custom metadata. You can view search scopes in the browser with scope pickers. Scope pickers are connected to a display group listing the scopes to be displayed.
Creating Content Sources to Crawl Business Data in SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Search by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
A content source is a location that contains resources, and you may want the resources crawled or indexed. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes functionality to search Web sites and SharePoint sites, folders, and data exposed using the Business Data Catalog. In this Visual How-to article, we'll focus on working with the Business Data Catalog with step-by-step instructions and samples.

Business Data Catalog (BDC)

Refining Business Data Catalog Search with Scopes by Ryan Femling, 3Sharp
You can use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to search entities and other Business Data Catalog items, site collections, and people. You can easily refine the results of these Business Data Catalog searches with scopes. When you define the scopes, you can use them to segregate your Business Data Catalog search results from the rest of your SharePoint Server 2007 search results. You can display this data in a separate Web Part on the Search Results, or in a separate landing page altogether. This ability to segregate yet display the data side-by-side allows the searcher to easily see what they have searched on that is in the Business Data Catalog, along with any relevant material from SharePoint Server 2007.
Using Business Data Catalog Actions to Pass Parameters to InfoPath 2007 Browser Forms by David Gerhardt, 3Sharp
You can build forms with Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 that run both in InfoPath 2007 and in a Web browser. For browser scenarios, you can integrate with the Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by having a custom action pass a parameter value to form files.

Filtering one Business Data Catalog List from Another by Using Associations in SharePoint Server 2007 by John Peltonen, 3Sharp (previously announced)
The Business Data Catalog allows you to define multiple entities for a given line-of-business (LOB) system. Furthermore, within the metadata file, you can create associations that define a hierarchy within the entities. For example, if there are two entities defined, such as customers and orders, you can create an association to tie the customer entity directly to the order entity. This allows users within your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal to create master-child behavior.

Creating Business Data Catalog Entities in SharePoint Server 2007 by John Peltonen, 3Sharp (previously announced)
The Business Data Catalog is a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 feature that exposes and incorporates Line-of-Business (LOB) data into other baseline portal functionality, such as lists and enterprise search. To incorporate this data into your portal, you must build an XML file that identifies where the data is stored (either Microsoft SQL Server or a Web service) and what the data looks like (for example, what the data types and primary keys are).

Excel Services

Creating Managed-Code UDFs for Excel Services by Joel Krist, Akona Systems
Much like previous versions of Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 provides support for user-defined functions (UDFs). UDFs are custom functions that extend the calculation and data-import capabilities of Excel 2007.

Retrieving Excel 2007 Workbooks or Snapshots Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 Excel Services by Joel Krist, Akona Systems (previously announced)
If you want to save a copy of an up-to-date workbook, store it somewhere, send it to someone, and so on, you can retrieve an entire workbook or a snapshot using Excel Web Services. When a user or application requests a snapshot, Excel Services opens the Excel file on the server, refreshes data sources, and calculates all Excel formulas. Excel Services then generates and sends a snapshot back through the Web service API.

Let us know what you think! We have many more coming soon for MOSS, and we look forward to your feedback about the subjects we're choosing, the usefulness, and the technical depth of the videos. Let us know what you'd like to start seeing more of or less of!

More information: Office Visual How-to Center on MSDN

MOSS Developer Portal on MSDN Updated

randalli — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:20:00 GMT

Hello folks.

We just published a major update to the MOSS Developer portal on MSDN, which you can access easily by typing msdn.microsoft.com/moss.

In addition to putting some useful links on the home page to highlight recently published or "Top" articles, we extended the scope of what we call Information Centers. Information Centers are pages full of resources and "Getting Started" information for folks who want to dig deeper into MOSS. Our goal is to create the most useful and reliable lists of resources for developers that can be referenced repeatedly and bookmarked for use in the future. Our current pages include:

We also updated the following pages to reflect newly published content:

We intend to add more Information Centers in the coming months; please let us know if you have any suggestions. The next two pages on our list of priorities are Enterprise Search and Workflow.

Let us know how we're doing, and keep checking back each month for updates to the MOSS Developer Portal.