sharepoint 2010 integration and interoperability: what you need to know

SharePoint 2010Integration and Interoperability:What You Need to Know

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Presented By: Richard Harbridge

Who am I?

Our Goal Today…

From Here To Here

What we will be talking about…1. Business Data Challenges2. SharePoint’s Important Interoperability3. What is the BCS?

• External Content Types• External Columns• External Lists• Extensibility and Tooling

5. Limitations of BCS

4. Demonstration

Bonus!

Business Data Challenges

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Business Data in an Enterprise

Customers FinancialQuality OperationsSuppliersCustomers FinancialQuality OperationsSuppliers

Users

IT

High Overhead (Maintenance, Security)High Integration Costs (Custom)

High Training CostsHigh Dissatisfaction

Redundant Data and Processes!

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Challenges with Business DataChallenge IT End User

Higher Overhead for IT to Service User Requests

Multiple Places to Search

Multiple Places to Administer and Maintain

Multiple Places to Manage Content

Multiple Places to Secure Information

High Data Integration Costs (Often 100% Custom and One Offs)

Silos/Islands of Data Lead to Redundant Data or Processes

Multiple Interfaces; Dissatisfaction and Higher Training Costs

Higher Operational and Compliance Risk

Direct ImpactIndirect Impact

The Outcome

There are challenges that disparate and disconnected business data systems cause.

What to watch out for…

No system, product or application can completely solve business data

challenges.

People

Process

Technology

SharePoint’s Important Interoperability

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“Interoperability is the ability of a system.. to work with other systems.. without special effort on the part of the customer.”

What the heck is Interoperability?

(IHN-tuhr-AHP-uhr-uh-BIHL-ih-tee)

How?

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How do we achieveInteroperability?

2. By making use of a "broker" of services that can convert one system’s interface into another system’s interface "on the fly".

1. By adhering to published interface standards. Does SharePoint do this?

What about this one?

SPOILER ALERT!

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SharePoint Interoperability

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Is it a UI Platform?

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Why would we use SharePoint as a User Interface Platform?

Consistent User Experience Across Browsers

Well.. Almost.

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It’s a UI Platform1. By adhering to published interface standards.

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A UI Platform Bonus?Bonus!

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Leverage Office and SharePointInterface Familiarity

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Is it an Identity Platform?

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Why would we use SharePoint as an Identity Platform?

Because Claims is Awesome

Connect with 3rd Party Authentication ProvidersConnecting with a Non Windows Integrated Authentication driven web site.

Delegation with Back-End SystemsShowing data from another server on a SharePoint web page.

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Claims UsesConsistent Standards

*Doesn’t actually support SAML Protocol (SAMLP)

1. By adhering to published interface standards.

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It’s an Identity Platform

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Is it a Search Platform?

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Why would we use SharePoint as a Search Platform?

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Query a 3rd Party Search Engine Using SharePoint UI

Federate Queries to Multiple Search Systems…

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Index Content from a Range of Content Repositories

What does all of these?

Indexes Databases, Web Services or Custom Repositories

Provides Consistent Access to External Content

Has SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio Plug-ins

B

C

S

_ _ _B C S

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A Search Platform Bonus!Bonus!

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Have you heard of OpenSearch?• Standard (Creative Commons) for syndication and

aggregation of search results• Syntax for executing queries• Results returned in RSS/ATOM + extensions• Supported by Microsoft Search Server 2008

Clients: Windows 7, IE, FireFox, Chrome, SharePoint …Providers: Amazon, Flickr, Wikipedia, SharePoint…

1. By adhering to published interface standards.

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It is a Search Platform

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Is it a Data Access Platform?

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SharePoint Does a Great Job of Accessing SharePoint Content!

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What about External Systems and Content?

_ _ _B C S

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A Data Access Platform Bonus!Bonus! x 2

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Content Management Interoperability Services

CMIS specification provides a Web services interface that: Is designed to work over existing repositories enabling

customers to build and leverage applications against multiple repositories—unlocking content they already have

Decouples Web services and content from the content management repository, enabling customers to manage content independently

Provides common Web services and Web 2.0 interfaces to dramatically simplify application development

Is development platform and language agnostic Supports composite application development and mash-up by

the business or IT analyst

A platform that allows you to build against multiple technologies without knowing anything about how all the API’s work. (If you know CMIS.)

Microsoft has been implementing this from both a client and provider perspective.

Not available “in the box”. Available via SharePoint Admin Toolkit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=718447d8-0814-427a-81c3-c9c3d84c456e&displaylang=en

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And then there’s RESTAccess to SharePoint Lists and Document Libraries…

• RESTful interface over HTTP • Uses the ADO.NET Data Services interface conventions• Feature rich: retrieve, update, browse data using

just URLs and XML/JSON• Low barrier of entry. If you have an HTTP stack

you can use it.

Visual Studio Integration…• Entirely built on top of the open RESTful interface• No client is required• Visual Studio creates proxies, visualizes schemas,

provides LINQ support etc.

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SharePoint has Interoperability

Some might even say it has storage interoperability or that OData is a standard… But the coolest part of interoperability?

2. By making use of a "broker" of services that can convert one system’s interface into another system’s interface "on the fly".

The Outcome

SharePoint is a growing Interoperable UI, Identity,

Search, and Data Access Platform.


Remember this?“Interoperability is the ability of a system to work with other systems without special effort on the part of the customer.”

without special effort

What is the BCS?

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BCS in Office Client

Persistence

Store

Data

Cubes

SAP ORACLE SiebelSQL

Custom .NET

assembly

Identity Federation

serviceBCS in SharePoint

BCS MetaData Store

External data

AS Custom

Connector

Client to Backend

Direct Connection

Client DataCache

DB

Connector

WCF /WS

Connector

.NET

Assembly

Connector

SharePoint Client

You could look at this diagram…

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External Data

External Content Types

External ListsSharePoint

Workspace w/ InfoPath Forms

Outlook Forms and Task Panes

Office Applications

Search Results

Or this simplified one…

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External Data





Office Applications

Search Results


Describes:• Structure of the external

system (Fields, Methods, Connection)• How this data behaves within

SharePoint and Office

Added to the BCS Service Through:• SharePoint Designer• Visual Studio 2010• Via an Import into the Business Data

Connectivity Service as part of a model

Manage and Re-Use from a Central Location

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External Data





Office Applications

Search Results

External Lists

The external content type is leveraged in a variety of ways…

Such as for Exposing External Data as an External SharePoint List

Full CRUD capability Familiar UI and NavigationSort, Filter, GroupProgrammatic Access via SPList OMProfile Page for Each ItemFormAuto-generated OOBUpsize to InfoPath

Can be Taken “Offline”

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External Data





Office Applications

Search Results

Offline Lists

External Lists also be leveraged as Offline “Lists”

Or Connected to Outlook as Contacts, Tasks, Calendars and Posts

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External Data





Office Applications

Search Results

Office Applications and Search

w/ Code

External Content Types can also be leveraged in…

Many other Office Applications (or Custom Applications)

Or Leveraged to allow for External Data Searching or Filtering

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External Data





Office Applications

Search Results

Bonus! Integration Webparts

w/ Code

Bonus!

Web PartsExternal Data ListExternal Data ItemExternal Data Item BuilderExternal Data Related ListExternal Data Connectivity FilterChart Web Part (New)

Integration Webparts

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Didn’t those webparts work with the BDC?

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So what’s different? (Besides the Chart Control?)

Read/Write CapabilityClaims AwareConnect via ADO/SQL, WCF/WS, .Net Assembly and Custom ConnectorsBatch and Bulk Operation Support

BDC is still used for search indexing connectors in 2010 they added blob, incremental crawl and item level security.

They added symmetrical server and client runtimes. Allowing them to connect from client or server directly to external data.

SQL CE database is used to cache external data which allows for “cached mode” behavior on external data basically creating a rich client cache.

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How do I actually build it out?

Intermediate AdvancedSimple

• Create Reusable Components (UI parts, ECTs, Actions)

Out-of-box• Surface data in

External Lists

• Connect those lists to Outlook, SPW

• External Data Columns

DeveloperPower User

NO CODE

Advanced Developer

CODE

Where things fit.

“NO CODE”

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1. Discover your Data Source• Database

• Web services

• .NET type

2. Map Operations to Data Source• Create, read, update, delete, lookup

3. Connect to SharePoint and/or Office • External List

• Contact

• Task

• Appointment

• Post

SharePoint Designer Process

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Visual Studio Process

w/ Code

The Outcome

The BCS has a bunch of new capabilities bundled with some old enhanced BDC ones.


Selecting the right tool is important. Practice makes perfect.

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That’s a lot of information!

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The Outcome

You saw how the BCS can be leveraged in SharePoint Designer and in the SharePoint

UI.


Don’t assume the tools will significantly reduce the time it takes

to ‘integrate’. It typically reduces time to ‘interface’.

What are BCSLimitations?

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General BCS Limitations

• No Write support for BLOB• You cannot write back to BLOB fields using BCS

unless you write your own method.• You can access BLOB columns by defining a

StreamAccessor method and presenting the external data via the BCS Data List web part by checking the Display stream fields property.

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External List Limitations• Workflows cannot be associated with external lists

• Workaround: You can use the external data columns and manipulate it that way.

• No RSS feed support for external lists• No REST based access for external lists

• http://sharepoint/_vti_bin/ListData.svc does not support external lists• LINQ to SharePoint spmetal.exe does not support external lists• Cannot configure alerts for external lists• Cannot export external list items to Excel (using the Export to Excel

feature), Create Visio Diagram, Open with Access or Open with Project• Versioning cannot be configured on external lists• Version History is not available on external lists• Datasheet view cannot be used in external lists

• XSLT is Supported (So you can basically make your own.)

External Lists

http://sharepoint/_vti_bin/ListData.svc

http://sharepoint/_vti_bin/ListData.svc

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External List Limitations Continued…

• Ratings feature is not supported for external lists• Information policies cannot be configured on external lists• Item-Level permissions are not available for external lists• No item or field level validation (without InfoPath)• Lookups don’t work on any column but ID• No attachments.

External Lists

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• You cannot create a site column of type ‘External Data Column’• External data columns can be created only as list based

columns and cannot be consumed in site level content types

Bonus! External Column Limitations

Bonus!

The Outcome

You now know more about the limitations of BCS and will make fewer

assumptions.


Some of the many limitations mentioned make sense. Think

carefully before you build a ‘workaround’.

1. Business Data Challenges2. SharePoint’s Important Interoperability3. What is the BCS?

External Content TypesExternal ColumnsExternal ListsExtensibility and Tooling

4. Limitations of BCS

1. The Challenges Aren’t All Technology Challenges2. Interface, Identity, Search and Data Access Platform3. A Set of Powerful Connection Capabilities

Structured Types of External ContentLeveraging External Content with Internal ContentInteract Like SharePoint ListsExtensibility/Tool Range from UI to SPD to VS 2010

4. Good Enough and Better than Most Options

What we talked about…

Thank You!Thanks to Organizers, Sponsors and You for Making this Possible.

Questions? Ideas? Feedback? Contact me:

Twitter: @rharbridge

Blog: www.rharbridge.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rharbridge

Email me at: [email protected]

My company: www.Allin.com

http://www.rharbridge.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rharbridge

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.allin.com/