Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in Microsoft SharePoint
Posted by Don Snyder on Mon, Jul 05, 2010 @ 09:13 AM
One of the hottest new features in the new SharePoint 2010 release is the ability to quickly access your critical business data and present it on your intranet or extranet within a Webpart.
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) allows end users or developers the ability to embed rich content within a Webpart or be used to access backend systems right from a SharePoint external list.
Using SharePoint Designer 2010 or Visual Studio 2010 you can quickly select the information using LINQ to read or update this information right from an out of the box SharePoint WebPart.
Think of the possibilities:
- You can extend your organization by providing collaboration tools with suppliers and giving them the ability to provide estimated delivery schedules or respond to a Request for Quotation.
- You can provide your road warriors with up to the minute access to inventory availability, current sales order status, and commission information right from a their browser.
- You can provide owners and senior management an executive dashboard that describes the health of the business anytime and anywhere.
This data access technology is part of all of the SharePoint 2010 versions. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation is a free download with Windows/2008.
Interested in learning more? Review our recorded webinar from a recent event.
Another great reasource to describe this architecture can be found on the MS Technet Site.
I am interested in learning more about your experiences using BCS.
Please tell us about it.
