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All posts tagged SharePoint Features

November 17, 2018
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Business Connectivity Services – It’s Not Dead… Yet

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Azure DB, Office365, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, SharePoint Online, SQL , , , , , , 0

I had a great time recently presenting at CalSpoug’s SharePoint Saturday.  The first session I presented was on SharePoint Business Connectivity Service.  I have done this session quite a few times and I always have at least one attendee state they have never heard of BCS before.  This session was no different.  One of the things I cover is the importance of BCS in different environments.  Many will argue it is an old, unnecessary system.  I do not necessarily disagree with this.  However, I argue it isn’t dead yet.  If you are working with simple data in a SQL Database or even more complex but well-organized data in a database the ease of use within BCS is quickly seen.  In 5-10 minutes you can connect to your data and present it within SharePoint utilizing built-in forms (no custom form development).  Users will be able to read and update the data immediately (assuming permissions are configured already).  There’s more to it than just this and you can take a look at my slide deck to see.

Having said that, I do believe that I see an end to BCS.  PowerApps and Flows make accessing data just as easy and more configurable through the many, many connectors available.  As these connectors mature and the tools grow, the use cases for BCS will slowly disappear.  However, we aren’t there yet.  BCS is still there and still very easy to use.

 

Take a look at my slide deck and if you have questions, please reach out.

 

Thanks for reading!

December 24, 2015
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Playing Outside your Sandbox (Part 3) – Secure Store and BCS Authentication

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Configuration, Configuration, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 , , , 0

Welcome to the third installment of my SharePoint BCS overview series.

If you wish to see part 2 of the series please click here.

Today I would like to discuss the different methods of authentication with Business Connectivity Services (BCS).  There are actually many ways to perform the authentication.  You can use methods such as connection strings and OData Authentication Providers.  However, if you want to go with a total no-code solution (as discussed in this series) SharePoint Secure Store Service is the way to go.  You can use a non-code solution that doesn’t make use of the Secure Store as well, and I intend to discuss, but you will soon learn why you don’t want to use this in a production environment unless your system is setup a particular way.  This post will cover those different methods of authentication as well as discuss how you can use the SharePoint Secure Store Service to help you make your BCS connections.

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December 9, 2015
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Playing Outside your Sandbox (Part 2) – SharePoint BCS Features by Version

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Configuration, Configuration, Development, Development, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 , , , 0

In this post we will discuss the different features that are available to you within your SharePoint environment.  The information I am providing will be based on SharePoint 2013, but unless I specifically state the features are new to SP2013 you can assume they exist in SP 2010 as well.

Click here for part 1 of this series

SharePoint Foundation

Although this is the free and most basic version of SharePoint you actually get some great features from BCS.  Many environments are more than capable of fully utilizing everything they could possibly need with just the foundation version of SharePoint.

External Content Types

The External Content type is the heart of BCS.  99.9% of everything you do with BCS starts with an External Content Type (ECT).  ECTs basically act as the connection between SharePoint and the external data.  An ECT maps all the data within the external source that you want to bring into SharePoint.  I say that you want because even if you hit a data source with 25+ columns and you want 3, then you only have to bring in 3.  The ECT then maps all the connections, and configuration of the data from the external data source to objects within SharePoint.  The ECT in the end is really just a content type which contains columns that just happen to get their data from a source outside of your SharePoint farm.

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December 5, 2015
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Playing Outside Your Sandbox – Connecting SharePoint to External Data Sources (Part 1)

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Development, Development, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 , , 0

Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in my opinion is one of SharePoint’s most powerful, yet most under-utilized services.  Let’s think about this for a second.  If you are building a .NET app that needs to connect to an external database you need to create the connections to it and the basic CRUD methods into your data layer (you better be using a separate data layer or get off my blog ;-p  ).  Yes I know there are lots of code out there that will generate it for you, or you could just build your own.

But what if I told you that you could do it all with your already existing SharePoint environment and in a lot of cases without writing a single line of code.  Now before you developers get out your torches and pitchforks (remember I am one of you), let me assure you, for the more complex data connections you will still need to write code.  You will need to be able to write the code that can access, update and insert the data properly.  All I am saying is that for simple to moderately difficult data operations you can do it within SharePoint without writing any code.  Perhaps this means you could delegate some of this to the non-developers on your SharePoint support team so you only get the fun development work.

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