New BCS Enhancements in on-premise and online SharePoint 2013

Hi Folks,

I'm writing this blog to list the new BCS features and enhancements in SharePoint 2013. SharePoint 2013 is released with great features for developers and IT Admins in terms of ease of use connecting to external sources and the ability to develop self-contained SharePoint applications that connect to external sources. In this article i will describe the new features and enhancements when building solutions on top of SharePoint 2013.

BCS enhancements in on-premise SharePoint 2013:

1) Automatic generation for BDC Models for OData data sources:
In SharePoint 2013, you are able to connect to OData endpoints and generate BDC models. You must use Visual Studio 2010 to create BDC models for OData data sources.
Then you can import these models in BDC Catalog on your farm-scoed external content types or added on a SharePoint App. VS 2010 will generate  BCS operations for all OData Operations (Get, Put, Post and Delete).

2) The ability to create SharePoint App-Scoed External Content Type:
When creating BDC models in VS 2010, you will be able to add App-Scoped external content types that will be used only on the associated SharePoint App.

3) Performance improvements in external lists:
SharePoint 2013 has introduced new enhancements and improvements to minimize the load on the database servers in the SharePoint farm and by increasing the speed of list rendering.
The ability to perform paging, filtering, and sorting of the external list data before it is sent to SharePoint is a great feature.

4) Limiting the records returned by external system:
In the BDC model, users can specify the number of records in the list that they want displayer per page.

5) Data Source Filtering, Sorting and export to excel:
In SharePoint 2013 you are able to filter and sort the data exposed through the an external list. So, in this case the external system filter and sort the data before send it back to the external list.
Also, you can export an external list to excel and in this case you get all list content and structure it shows in the browser.

BCS enhancements in SharePoint Online:

1) REST (CSOM): REST Api is available for web and mobile devlopers to consume SharePoint data using Client Obect Model for the REST Api.

2) BCS Client runtime supports side by side Office 2010 and Office 2013 installaion.

Hope this helps.

-Mostafa Elzoghbi

Secure Store Service Error in SharePoint 2010 : Secure Store Service is not accessible

Hi All,

I have been noticed that one of our SharePoint 2010 installation has a problem when trying to click on Secure Store Service in central administration.

The problem is : Try to click on SSS service in Central Administration and you will get an error page.

How to check the exact problem: I checked the event log in my server and i found the following error:

The Secure Store Service application Secure Store Service is not accessible. The full exception text is: The HTTP service located at https://PORTALURL/b04c52908ae5479596745e86b13875d4/SecureStoreService.svc/https is too busy.

To cause of the problem: the SSS service is not provisioned correctly, and to fix it:
Select the secure store service and from the ribbon click on properties. Verify the information that you have and click on OK. this action will provision the required DB and other service application configuration for this service.

This action will take around 5 minutes or depends on the performance of your server.

You don't need to re-install or run the configuration wizard for this fix.

Hope this helps :) Happy SharePointing...

User Profile Synchronization in SharePoint 2010 Facts

Hi Folks,

I'd like to share with you some important facts about User Profile synchronization in SharePoint 2010. SharePoint 2010 has User Profile Service application which provides a two-way synchronization for users/groups from your directory services or any external system in sync with SharePoint 2010 users and groups profiles.

Terms used in this post:
* UP: User Profile.
* UPSSA: User Profile Synchronization Service Application.
* UPSS: User Profile Synchronization Service.

Here are some facts you should be aware when you start planning for user profiles in SharePoint:
1) SharePoint 2010 has User Profile Service Application which manage the synchronization process between SP and AD or any external system that contains users & groups.

2) SP 2010 provisions a version of Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager to participate in synchronization.

3) UPSSA can only have one user profile synchronization service.

4) A UPSS is associated with connections and mappings.

5) We divide connections in UPSS into two types: connections to directory services, and connections to business systems.

6) When you setup a connection in UPSS to connect to directory services, You specify which containers to be included in the synchronization. You can specify filters to exclude service or disabled accounts.

7) Mapping is a step to map SharePoint user profile fields to directory services/external system user profile master data fields.

8) Upon each synchronization, SharePoint deletes SP users who have been deleted from Directory services.

9) Upon each synchronization, SharePoint add and updates SP user profile's fields as configured in the UPSS.

10) IMPORTANT: If you have multiple directory services, each directory services MUST provide unique users. You can't synchronize a single user with multiple directory services.

11) IMPORTANT: You can populate properties from any existing business system. You can't create new user profiles from an external system, and you can't write data back to a business system.

12) To synchronize properties from external system, First you should create an external content type to bring data from the business system into SP 2010. Then you will be able to synchronize these users into SP.

13) You should have a key field to be used for mapping between SP user profiles and your external system. You can use employee's work email as the identifier of your external content type. In this case, SP will synchronize information which matches employee's email to be captured in your synchronization records.

14) You can build a custom solution using SP object model to create user profiles in SharePoint.

Hope this helps.


References:
1) Profile Synchronization overview in SP 2010:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg188041.aspx
2) BCS Overview in SP 2010:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee661740.aspx

Integrate External SharePoint 2010 List to Outlook 2010

Hi All,

A friend of mine asked for how to integrate SharePoint 2010 external list that is configured to pull information from an external system into outlook 2010.

So, To begin the office 2010 has unique and enhanced integration with sharepoint 2010, If you are able to configure SharePoint 2010 to pull data from external data using BCS Exteranl List. You will be able to manage this list in outlook 2010.

First, When you create external list that is designed to be used in outlook the ECT ( Exteranl Content Type ) has to be with type Office item type and select from the options: Task, Post, Appointment or contact.

How to connect to external list using SPD:
1) Open SPD with the SP site.
2) Select External content type and click on External content type from the ribbon.
3) Type the ECT name and select the office item type from the list.
4) select the data source and do the mapping.
5) Note: You have to map the fields to the appropriate office mapping.
6) Save your ECT and click on Create Lists and Form from the ribbon.
7) Now you have the ECT and the list in the SharePoint Site.
8) Before test the list, set the permission to the External list from the central admin -> application management -> application services -> select BCS -> select your list and click on set permissions - > provide the required permissions per user.
9) Visit your SP site and click on lists link and select your list to check it.

Note: I went through how to create ECT and External List in SP 2010. There is more tips and security best practices for above items - Please check MSDN how to setup BCS with SSS service.

How to get the created external list on your outlook ?
1) Select your list.
2) Select List tab and click on connect to outlook.
3) an Add-In will be installed and configured to your outlook 2010 to the list.

Now, You will be able to manage the list once the configuration is done and outlook will be launched automatically once SP 2010 is done with the configuration.












Another Question: How can i change the mapping for the created ECT ?
The only thing you need to do is to open SPD and select your ECT - > Read Item and then click on Edit Operation from the ribbon and change the ECT field mapping and save it.

Tip: if you have your outlook 2010 is opened, and you right click on the contact list and run the sync option you won't be able to get the new mapping fields. Close the outlook and open it again.













Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mostafa Arafa
twitter.com/mostafaelzoghbi

System Services/ Service Applications in SharePoint 2010

Hi All,

In this post, I’d like to share some thoughts about SharePoint 2010 terms in regard of planning your SharePoint Farm. I will show in details the differences between some terms such as: System Services, Application Services, Cross-farm services, Single-farm services, Services associated or not to a service applications and How to configure each of them in your SharePoint Farm.
If you are familiar with SharePoint 2007, Service applications are the equivalent to Shared Services in SharePoint 2007.
1) System Services: In SP 2007, some common services were combined under Shared Services service (search, user profile…etc.), in SP 2010, each service is a standalone application, called Service Application. In SP 2010 you can configure each service application alone. Some of these system services are associated or not with a service application.
To configure System Services in SP 2010, follow these steps:
1) Open SP 2010 Central Admin
2) Select System settings
3) Click on Manage services on server
You will be able to select the servers within the farm and Start/Stop them
2) Web Application and system services: Once you create a web application in your farm, all system services are associated to your web application, You can configure which service application would you like to associate with your web application, to do so:
1) Open SP 2010 Central administration
2) Select Application Management
3) Click on Manage configure service application association
4) Click on your web application and select the required system services required
5) Select custom from the drop down list to start configure the system services associated with your web application

3) Cross-farm services vs. Single-farm services:
Cross-farm services: are the services that can be shared across different farms within the organization such as: User Profile, Managed Metadata, BCS, Search, SSS and Web Analytics.
Single-farm services: are the services that can be configured only within only one farm such as: State service, Master data services, Performance Point, Excel Services, Access Services, Word Services, Word Viewing, Power Point and Visio Service.



Regards,
Mostafa Arafa
twitter.com/mostafaelzoghbi

Access denied by business data connectivity

Hi,

I was trying to create an external list in sharepoint 2010 and i was getting this error: "Access Denied by Business Data Connectivity" when i am trying to view the external list in my sharepoint 2010 site.

The fix for this problem is easy since the cause of this error is : The business data connectivity service is not configured in sharepoint- permissions are not set !

What we will do is to configure the BDC service by set the security permissions on it:

1) open central administrations.
2) select application management.
3) select business data connectivity service.
4) Hover on your application and select set permission from the menu.
5) Add users that will have the permissions to use this BDC Application and assign the required permissions.
6) Click Ok.

Refresh the external list and will works :)

Hope this helps.

Ref.:
http://blogs.msdn.com/bcs/archive/2010/01/28/bcs-team-channel-creating-an-external-content-type-in-sharepoint-designer-2010.aspx


Regards,
Mostafa arafa

SharePoint 2010 Data Manipulation Techniques

Hi All,

27th March 2010 we had a successfull event of SharePoint Saturday - Arabia (@SPSArabia) hash tag in twitter, and event site url:
http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/arabia/default.aspx

On this event we had more than +150 attendees and the quality of presenters was really hight, and the content is really fresh and new.

My session topic: SharePoint 2010 Data manipulation Techniques
"In this session will experiment different data manipulation techniques in SharePoint 2010 using server and client object model and the differences of using different model to query your data. Also, Using LINQ is one of the most favorite features for .NET developers in SharePoint 2010 and how can you retrieve master-details data in simple query in your code.
"

As i got the message from my attendees to post my slides and the solution for my demos.

Presentation url:
http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/SPSatrday%5E_SP2010%5E_SharePointDataManipulationTechniques.pptx

Solution Code for my demos:
http://cid-4bc94054914a6469.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog%20Code/SP2010Arabia.zip

Hope this helps and enjoy :)

Regards,
Mostafa arafa