Web services and the Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010

By admin BCS Meta Man 11th November 2010

Many organizations are now making use of Service Orientated Architectures. The SOA web service layers they create can also be used with the Business Connectivity Services. In this walkthrough we will demonstrate how to integrate web services with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and display the data on SharePoint 2010 page. In order to do that we will describe how to create a new external content type by means of BCS Meta Man.

To configure web services with BCS Meta Man you’ll need to download the November beta from the downloads page:

https://lightningtools.com//downloads/bcsmetaman-download.aspx

Prerequisites:
- Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher
- BCS Meta Man
- Web Service with Finder, Specific Finder and Id Enumerator web methods
Open Visual Studio 2010
Add a New Project
Expand the “SharePoint” node, select “Lightning Tools (2010)” node and then the “BCS Meta Man” project type
Give your project a name i.e WebServiceBCSMetaManDemo and click “OK”

[Please click the images for a larger view]
On the next dialog box, enter the name of where you want to deploy your model, and click “Finish” button
In order to add Web Reference right-click WebServiceBCSMetaManDemo project node in the “Solution Explorer” pane and choose “Add Service Reference…” You will get the “Add Service Reference” dialog. Click the “Advanced…” button at the bottom left
The next screen that appears is the “Service Reference Settings” dialog. Click “Add Web Reference…” button at the bottom left
Enter URL to your WSDL including “?wsdl” on the end and give your Web reference a name i.e BCSMetaManDemoWebReference and click “Add reference” button
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 “Web service” tab and click “Connect” button
The Data Source Explorer will now be populated with your web service methods
Drag and drop your Finder Web Method onto the design surface and enter External Content type name, i.e WebServiceCustomer, click “OK”
Choose the Finder as the method type and click “OK”
The External Content Type will be created on the Diagram
From the “BCS Meta Man Data Source Explorer” drag and drop your Specific Finder Web Method onto the existing External Content Type
The “Method Configuration” dialog will be displayed. Select “SpecificFinder” as the Method Type. Select the first Parameter used by Specific Finder method – customerID and map it to your unique identifier selected from the available columns. Click “OK”.
The External Content Type will update with the new Specific Finder Method
Next drag and drop the Id Enumerator Web Method onto the existing External Content Type
Select “IdEnumerator” as the Method Type, Click “OK”
Again, the External Content Type will update with the new Id Enumerator Method
Press F5 to deploy The External Content Type, this will load up your SharePoint Page once deployed
Add a new External list by selection on SharePoint page “Site Action”->“More Options…”->“External List”
Give your External List a name and Click on the icon to show the available External Content Types
Select created WebServiceBCSMetaManDemo.WebServiceCustomer External Content Type, click “OK”. Click “Create” button then.
The external data provided by web service is now displayed in the SharePoint External List