Introduction
In this tutorial we will go through how to connect to your External System using BCS Meta Man, we won’t be doing any configuration of our model, we will just be looking at the quickest way to get your External Systems data into SharePoint using a .Net Assembly Connector as easily as possible.
Prerequisites
- SharePoint Server 2010
- Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher
- BCS Meta Man
- AdventureWorks SQL Database
Walkthrough
- Open Visual Studio 2010
- Add a New Project
- Select ‘SharePoint’ > ‘Lightning Tools (2010)’ , now you can select the BCS Meta Man project type.
- Give your project a name i.e BCSMetaManDemo
[Please click the images for a larger view]
- Click ‘OK’
- On the next dialog box, enter the name of where you want to deploy your model, and make sure you select ‘Deploy as a farm solution’ , click ‘Finish’
- To show the ‘BCS Meta Man Data Source Explorer’ we need to enable it from the Menu item, this new window can be docked so it doesn’t get in your way.
- Click the ‘Add Connection’ button to show the ‘Connection Dialog’
- Select the Data Source type, enter your Server name and also select whether to ‘Use Windows Authentication’ or you provide logon credentials, click ‘Connect’
- The Data Source Explorer will now be populated with your Server data
- We will be working with the ‘Product’ table, to add it to the Model , just drag it from the ‘Data Source Explorer’ onto the ‘Diagram’
- When you drop the table you will be shown the following dialog, we want to choose ‘.Net Assembly’ , click ‘OK’
(Database can be used if you want to create a model which connects straight to your External System without using a .Net Assembly i.e no code solution)
- Accept the default ‘Identifiers’ by clicking ‘Next’
- Accept the default 3 methods to be created, click ‘Generate’
The default 3 methods are:
- Finder – Returns all items
- Specific Finder – Returns a single item by identifier
- IdEnumerator – Returns just the Identifiers for all of the items
- Watch as the code is generated for you, think of the time it is saving!
- Press F5 to deploy, this will load up your SharePoint Page once deployed
- Add a new Business Data List Web Part to your SharePoint page
- Click on the ‘Open the tool pane’ link
- Click on the icon to show the available External Content Types
- Select our BCSMetaManDemo.ProductsModel.Product External Content Type, click OK
- Click ‘OK’ on the tool pane
- Your External System data is now displayed in the SharePoint Web Part
When I try to run step 19, I receive the following error in Visual Studio:A Feature with the following item ID could not be found: cebaad93-a890-44b2-b0de-8e71a52dbef6 I’m not sure what feature this is referring to but according to Central Admin the Business Data Connectivity Service appears to be running.
When I get to step 8, I do not have any template for a BCSMETAMAN Item Type. I have installed the BCS Meta Man template as per the installation instructions.
We are trying to make our business data searchable in Sharepoint for which we are exploring a couple of products like BA-Insight’s Longitude connector, etc.Just came across Meta Man and I have question:Where does item ACL tie-into this? Surely we can make contents searchable in Sharepoint with this tool but as with any business data we have content authorization. Example: Making Trade data searchable from a SQL table but we need to place security on each trade (item) at the time of crawl based on who has access.
Hell Sir,Can and how we deploy the bcs to a Sharepoint 2010 sandboxed site?Thank,Lee
Dear Srs.:I download and Install BCS Meta Man, but, when try to add a New item to my project (Step 7 and 8), the ‘Lightning Tools’ node don’t appear.Please support.Regards from Chile
The guide should specify that it’s a C# SharePoint project that one must specify
I’m evaluating MetaMan for our uses. I’ve installed vs 2010, added the visx, but when i try to create a project, i get this message: “error: this temaplte attempted to load componenet assembly “microsoft.visualstudio.sharepoint.designers.businessdataconnectivity,….. “Please advise.
The following error occurs everytime. I have not successfully deployed with Meta Man. My SPS2010 works in everyway, including consuming external data list created within SPS/SPD.—————Error 3 Error occurred in deployment step ‘Add Solution’: Failed to load receiver assembly “Microsoft.Office.SharePoint.ClientExtensions, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” for feature “BCSMetaMan6_Feature1″ (ID: 0a34fc41-5d25-4ee0-906c-0253142b0000).: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Office.SharePoint.ClientExtensions, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.File name: ‘Microsoft.Office.SharePoint.ClientExtensions, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c’ at System.Reflection.Assembly._nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String codeBase, Evidence assemblySecurity, Assembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection) at System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(AssemblyName assemblyRef, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean forIntrospection) at System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(String assemblyString, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean forIntrospection) at System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(String assemblyString) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFeatureDefinition.get_ReceiverObject()WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftFusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftFusion!EnableLog]. 0 0 BCSMetaMan6
hiwhat if the data sources or tables dont show in the explorer view? The SQL account I have is read only.thanks,tony.
Hello, I am still evaluating your great product BCS Meta Man. However, while making a Connection to MySQL via ODBC it asks me to enter delimiters and parameters etc. What would you recommend as a default setting for a MySQL remote database.
Buenos días,escribo desde un colegio en bogotá Colombia, estoy muyyy interesada en la solución BCS MetaMan,la instalé pero cuando voy a crear el proyecto con visual studio no tengo la plantilla para crear el proyecto.me pueden ayudar con este demo.gracias
Hello, I’ve tried to install BCS Meta Man on Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate (as the product note does say Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher. When I click on the VSIX installer file, it says “Installation Failed, The installation was unable to install the extension to all the selected products. For more information, click on the Install log link at the bottom of the dialog”.
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Microsoft VSIX Installer
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – ——————————————-
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Initializing Install…
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Extension Details…
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Identifier : 1a9de8f0-7fcb-41a8-97d1-13d742e5d473
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Name : BCS Meta Man
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Author : Lightning Tools Ltd
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Version : 5.0.0.14
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Description : BCS Meta Man is the powerful tool for the Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010. It provides the ease of use of a drag-n-drop interface and can save you days in time by generating the code required by SharePoint 2010 to be integrated with your External Systems.
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Locale : en-US
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – MoreInfoURL : http://www.lightningtools.com/bcs/bcs-meta-man.aspx
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – InstalledByMSI : False
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – SupportedFrameworkVersionRange : [4.0]
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM –
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Supported Products :
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Microsoft.VisualStudio.Ultimate
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Version : [10.0]
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Microsoft.VisualStudio.Premium
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Version : [10.0]
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Microsoft.VisualStudio.Pro
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Version : [10.0]
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM –
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – References :
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM –
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Searching for applicable products…
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Found installed product – Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2012
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Found installed product – Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2012
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Found installed product – Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2012
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Found installed product – Microsoft LightSwitch for Visual Studio 2012
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Found installed product – Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Shell (Integrated)
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – Found installed product – Global Location
9/25/2012 5:18:59 PM – VSIXInstaller.NoApplicableSKUsException: This extension is not installable on any currently installed products.
at VSIXInstaller.App.InitializeInstall()
at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.InnerInvoke()
at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()