Let’s discuss about some BDC Web parts !

  • Article

Business Data Actions Web Part :

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Business Data Actions Web part is used to display all “Actions” from the business data catalog application definition file. It displays all actions of an individual item which we are selecting in tool panel of the web part. Actions are associated with entities in the Business Data Catalog. Actions bridge the gap between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and a native application user interface by providing a link back to the back-end data source. You can use Business Data Actions to build applications with write-back scenarios, such as a Customer Profile view that allows a user to update profile information directly in SAP. Actions are implemented as links, so you can also use actions to perform simple operations such as sending e-mail messages or opening a customer's home page.

Basically action travels everywhere with entity, That is, after you define an action for an entity, the action shows up everywhere you display that entity, such as in a Business Data Web Part or a Business Data column. But the “Business Data Actions Web part” is especially to display all the actions entitled in the application definition file for a particular item.For example, If you use the business data actionsweb part in your sharepoint site page by importing the attached application definition file with the Adventure work sample customer instance, You can see “view profiles” and “send e-mail” action.This action will be shown for a particular item which you are mentioning in the web part. Because “View Profiles” and “Send E-mail” are the two actions associated with
the entity (customer) in the application definition file.

Business Data Actions : https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms493081.aspx

Editing Business Data Using Business Data Catalog Actions and InfoPath Forms Services: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb852170.aspx

The Business Data Actions Web Part adds a simple URL to a page associated with the action named in the link. It is used to enable users to perform common actions from business applications directly from the Web browser. Often, a Business Data Actions Web Part is found on the same page with a related business data Web Part, so users can see information and act on it immediately. For example, a Business Data Actions Web Part for the "View Customer Profile" action could be found on a dashboard that has an Excel Web Access Web Part that displays sales for a customer and a KPI Web Part that shows customer satisfaction. An analyst seeing a low customer satisfaction KPI could correlate that information with recent sales reports and then click the business data action link to find out more about the customer and contact them to improve customer service.[ Ref article https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261941.aspx ]

Business Data Related List Web Part:

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 Business Data Related List display a list of items related to one or more parent items from a data source in the business data catalog. This business data related list web part works based on the “Association” mentioned in the BDC application definition file.

Ø Creating Association through Business Data Catalog Editor Tool :

In the BDC tool, click on add entities. In the entities design surface, drag and drop two tables with Primary key -> Foreign Key relation. In one of the table, you will find Forign Keys tab. Check the foreign key field and then export the XML file.

After exporting the file, add BDC List web part ( You can also use BDC Item web Part ) and associate with the instance. Then, add BDC Related List web part and in edit -->Connections --> Choose Get Related Item from BDC List web part ( can be BDC Item web part). Exit edit mode. Now for any item that you choose in BDC list web part, all the data for that item will be shown in BDC Related List web part.

Reference article - https://blah.winsmarts.com/2007-4-SharePoint_2007__BDC_-_Introducing_associations_between_entities.aspx

Ø Creating Association in ADF:

We can also create association directly in ADF. We need to add association tag entry in the ADF.

Article on this : https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb410047.aspx

Business Data Item Builder Web Part:

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· The Business Data Item Builder is a web part that is only visible when the page is in edit mode. Its job it to get identifiers from query string parameters from URL of the page it is placed on. It can then pass these values onto other web parts. For example if the url we use to go to default.aspx is default.aspx?productId=3, it would pass the value 3 to our Business Data Item web part which would display the record which has an ID of 3.