Actions are associated with entities in the Business Data Catalog. Actions bridge the gap between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and a native application user interface by providing a link back to the back-end data source. You can use Business Data Actions to build applications with write-back scenarios, such as a Customer Profile view that allows a user to update profile information directly in SAP. Actions are implemented as links, so you can also use actions to perform simple operations such as sending e-mail messages or opening a customer's home page.

Actions travel everywhere with an entity. That is, after you define an action for an entity, the action shows up everywhere you display that entity, such as in a Business Data Web Part or a Business Data column.

Note:
The Business Data Catalog automatically provides an action called View Profile that simply takes the user to a profile page. The profile page, by default, contains the Business Data Item Web Part for that entity. You can, however, customize the profile page to provide your users with a customized entity details page.

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