External content types of multiple finder Methods

ArticleDirectory

• Prepare the environment
• Procedure

In the original BDC (Bussiness data catalog), you can define only one finder method for the object. In other words, if you need to obtain data from two views with different fields returned from a table, you actually need to create two completely different entities. In business connectivity services, you can now define multiple finder methods. Then you can select a method from the interface or object model. This article will guide SharePoint designer 2010 to define multiple finder methods for your external content type (ECT) with BCS.

Prepare the environment

SharePoint designer 2010

A data source -- we will use the product table of adventureworks2000

Procedure

1. Enable SharePoint designer 2010

2. connect to your SharePoint site

3. Click "external content type" in the site Object List"

 

 

4. Click "external content type" in "New" in the functional area"

5. Give your ect a meaningful name. You only need to click the existing text and edit it.

 

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6. Click "here to discover external data sources and define operations" in the ECT Operations Section"

 

7. Click "add connection" and select "SQL Server"

8. Enter your connection information and click OK.

 

9. Expand the Tree View from the data source Resource Manager and find the "product" table.

 

10. Right-click the table and select "create read list operation"

11. Change "Operation name" and "Operation display name" to "all product information", and click Next.

12. Here we ignore the filter parameter settings (if you return data from a large dataset, you 'd better add a filter) and click Next.

13. Click "finish" on the "Return parameter configuration" page ".

14. Now we have created a "read list" Finder method. This method returns all fields of all items from our product table.

 

15. Right-click the table and select "create read list operation" again"

16. Change "Operation name" and "Operation display name" to "all product names". click Next.

17. Ignore filtering and click Next.

18. On the "Return parameter configuration" Page, deselect all fields except 'produtid' and 'name' from the "Data Source Element" list.

 

19. Click "finish"

20. Now we have two finder methods.

 

21. Click "save"

 

22. The ECT will be saved to the BDC metadata storage.

 

23. After the documents are saved, we can open our SharePoint site.

24. Add a "business data list" webpart on the page

 

 

25. Click the ECT selector icon.

26. Select this product (adventureworks) ECT

27. Click OK

28. In the viewing section, you now have two more finder methods, one is "all product information" and the other is "all product names"

 

29. Select the default option "all product information"

30. Click OK

31. Results returned by "all product information"

 

32. Click Edit webpart.

33. Select "all product names" view this time

34. Click OK

35. Results returned by "all product names"

References

BCS multiple finder methods for external content types