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Business Data Catalog Resource Center for SharePoint Server

Find articles, code samples, developer documentation, and videos about working with the Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

What Is the Business Data Catalog?

The Business Data Catalog functionality in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 enables you to present line-of-business data within MOSS. Learn to search and retrieve information from back-end systems such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning applications.

Architecture
Business Data Catalog: Architecture
Development Life Cycle
Business Data Catalog: Roles and Development Life Cycle

Getting Started

SDK: Business Data Catalog Overview and Architecture

Integrate business data from back-end server applications, such as SAP or Siebel, within SharePoint Server 2007 without writing any code.

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Top 5 Things You Should Know About the Business Data Catalog


The Business Data Catalog has built-in support for displaying data from databases and Web services.

You can use Business Data Catalog to display data from your SAP, Siebel, or other line-of-business (LOB) application via Web services or databases.

The Business Data Catalog provides homogeneous access to underlying data sources.

Use the Business Data Catalog metadata model that provides a consistent and simplified client object model from which to access data sources.

Metadata authors define metadata in XML.

No need to write code. Metadata authors define metadata in XML.

The runtime object model insulates Business Data Catalog client applications from learning application-specific coding paradigms.

Clients can  access all business applications in a single, simplified way. Because of the Runtime object model, calling a method on an SAP application is very similar to calling a method on Siebel or executing a query in SQL.

Entity instances should have a persistent identity, such as a primary key.

If entity instances have a persistent identity, such as a primary key, you can search for and locate them by using the key (identifier). Without an identifier, the Business Data Catalog cannot uniquely identify an entity instance. The returned data must have identifiers so that the data has semantic meaning in the Business Data Catalog and so that you can have actions, search, and index on the entities.

Displaying Line-of-Business Data with the Business Data Catalog

  1. Check out the Database and Web services samples included in the SDK.
  2. Check out the Metadata Definition Editor tool.
  3. Read and understand the metadata model.
  4. Model the metadata for your Web service or database by using AdventureWorks or another SDK sample as the base. For Web services, use the WSDL as the basis for type names.
  5. Add the application definition.
  6. Test the metadata.
  7. Troubleshoot if needed.


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