One common support question we have is when people have imported their BDC XML application definition file into the Shared Service Provider, they go to their SharePoint page and try to configure the BDC Data List Web Part but there are no entities to pick from. This is usually a permissions problem, as your user will need permissions to each BDC application and entity you want them to be able to use.
To set the permissions go into your Shared Service Administration page and click on the ‘Business Data Catalog permissions’ link
In here you can give users access to the BDC in general. You can use AD groups, as well as the group [Authenticated Users] if you wanted to give a permission to everybody who logs into SharePoint. Once you have enabled the permissions you can use the button to ‘Copy all permissions to descendants’ and this will copy the permission to all the BDC applications and entities.
If you want to give specific permissions to a BDC application, view the list of applications you have imported and use the drop down menu to display the link to Manage Permissions at the application level
[Please click the image for a larger view]
If you want to give specific permissions to specific entities you can do this by navigating to the entity and clicking on the ‘Manage Permissions’ link within the entity view:
