SharePoint List Integration

While viewing business data via Web Parts in a web page format offers great visibility for most organizations, sometimes users require a deeper integration between business data and existing SharePoint content. For example, if an organization’s customer information is stored in a customer relationship management database, it may be more beneficial to have a central listing of customers pulled from the database rather than maintained manually in a SharePoint list.

In a SharePoint list or library, you can create a custom column that pulls data directly from your business application via the BDC. In the next example, you see how to associate specific products with the specification materials and brochures that are uploaded to the customer service center SharePoint site. You base the Products column on product information stored in a business application, such as the AdventureWorks database that you’ve been using for the examples so far in this chapter. Once that Try it Out is complete, you upload a document to the library and associate business data with the document.

Try It Out-Create Columns for Business Data in a List

In this example, you create a new document library to store product-related documentation to help consolidate information for the customer service team. The team has repeatedly asked that it be given the capability to filter or search for a specific product. Typically to associate product names with documents, you create a central SharePoint list and then have a site column or list column point to that product list. However, as it happens, your organization already tracks this information in a central database. Therefore, by creating a business data type column on the library, you can connect to that central products list to allow users to associate product information with the various product documents in SharePoint.

Besides being connected directly to line-of-business application data, an additional advantage that a business data column has over SharePoint lookup columns is having columns known as related item columns, which display additional details about the selected item in the list. In this example, you display the description and list price items as columns in the library in addition to the product name. By selecting a product, these columns are automatically populated in the library.

1. From the main page of your customer service site, select Site Actions Site Settings. You are redirected to the Site Settings page.

2. Select Site Features. You are redirected to a page containing available site features.

3. For the Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Features item, select the Activate button. The Site Features page reloads, and the feature now shows as Activated.

4. Click Site Actions Create. You are redirected to the Content Creation page.

5. Select Document Library. You are redirected to a Document Library Creation page.

6. For the title, enter Product Documentation and the following for description:

   Important 

   Central location for storing materials and documentation related to our products.

7. Select Yes to display the library on the Quick Launch bar and store version history for each item.

8. For document template, select Microsoft Office Word Document.

9. Click the Create button. Your new document library is created, and you are redirected to it.

10. Select Settings Create Column. You are redirected to the Column Creation page.

11. For Column name, enter Product.

12. For Column type, select the Business Data option.

13. For Type, click the Browse button and select the entity you want to display and click the OK button. This example uses the Product Entity.

14. In the following drop-down menu, select the field you wish to display from the entity. This example uses Name.

15. Unselect the Display Actions Menu button.

16. You may also select related fields to be displayed, as shown in Figure 12-23. This example uses Description and List price.

    
    Figure 12-23

17. Select to have the column displayed in Default View.

18. Click the OK button. Your new column is created in the document library.

Try It Out-Associate Business Data with a List Item

In this example, you upload a user manual for a new product that has been added to your company’s product line. While the product is extremely new, the product name is automatically available to you when you performed a lookup on the product column. This is because the column connects directly to the production database and pulls the name from the global listing.

1. From the Product Documentation library, select the Upload button. You are redirected to the Upload page.

2. Click browse and locate the HL Touring Handlebars User Manual.doc file from this chapter’s resources.

3. Click the OK button.

4. For the Product column, click the Browse button. The Choose Product – Webpage Dialog appears.

5. Conduct a search for a name that is likely in your product listing by typing its name in the find field. Figure 12-24 shows your search for a product name that contains the term “Touring,” and your selection of the HL Touring Handlebars product from the AdventureWorks sample database.

   
   Figure 12-24

6. Click the OK button to select your item.

7. Click the OK button. Your document is uploaded and contains HL Touring Handlebars as the value in the Product column.

How It Works

In Figure 12-25, you see that although you only selected the product name for your library in the example, the values for Description and List Price are also associated with the document because you selected them when you defined the column as additional properties you wanted to display.

Figure 12-25