Today I attended a session about the SharePoint Business Data Catalog (BDC). I think this is one of the biggest steps forward in the new SharePoint version. The BDC basically is a layer between data sources (ado.net or xml) and the SharePoint core elements like webparts, lists, search and custom applications.
The benefits are that you can REALLY integrate your business data into your SharePoint environment, without writing any code… well, you have to write a (xml) data definition file with the source entities and relations. A tool for generating it will not be shipped by Microsoft, so there is an opportunity for 3rd party developers here.
So, once defined the xml, it is just a matter of importing it into the BDC in the SharePoint UI and the data will become available on several places:
- Some business data webparts (for showing data in master detail and related views)
- SharePoint Search, which is one of the coolest things: you can easily add a new tab to the sharepoint search center for searching for the new content types.
- SharePoint List, is in custom colums
- Programatically, to integrate the data into webparts and applications, preserving security and business logic.
One of the problems with the BDC is data synchronisation. This must be done manually when data is altered. So, there could be ‘old’ data available in SharePoint. You’ll have to write a mechanism to update the catalog automatically. There is a sync button in the SharePoint fields to update it, but it seems like it is not the perfect way to deal with it.
So, I personally am very happy to be able to integrate external data sources like CRM or other databases that easily. Can’t wait to try it out myself (probably tonight)!