Announcing the AdventureWorks OData Feed sample

Overview

As a continuation of my previous blog post, we created a live AdventureWorks OData feed at https://services.odata.org/AdventureWorksV3/AdventureWorks.svc. The AdventureWorks OData service exposes resources based on specific SQL views. The SQL views are a limited subset of the AdventureWorks database that results in several consuming scenarios:

• CompanySales
• Documents
• ManufacturingInstructions
• ProductCatalog
• TerritorySalesDrilldown
• WorkOrderRouting

We will be iterating on this sample, so expect it to improve over time. For instance, the Documents feed currently exposes the document entity type property as an Edm.Binary type. An upcoming iteration will show how to implement Named Resource Streams for the Documents.Document entity type property.

User Story

This sample iteration, on our CodePlex site, addresses the following user story:

As a backend developer, I want to only allow views of the AdventureWorks2012 database to be exposed as an OData public resource so that the underlying schema can be modified without affecting the service.

Source Download

• AdventureWorks OData Service
• AdventureWorks2012 database

How to install the sample

You can consume the AdventureWorks OData feed from https://services.odata.org/AdventureWorksV3/AdventureWorks.svc. You can also consume the AdventureWorks OData feed by running the sample service from a local ASP.NET Development Server.

To run the service on a local ASP.NET Development Server

1. Download the sample from CodePlex.
2. Attach the AdventureWorks2012 database. The AdventureWorks2012 database can be downloaded from https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/93587
3. From Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, run \AdventureWorks.OData.Service\SQL Scripts\Views.sql to create the OData feed SQL views.
4. Open \AdventureWorks.OData.Service\AdventureWorks.OData.Service.sln in Visual Studio 2012.
5. In Solution Explorer, select AdventureWorks.svc.
6. Press F5 to run the service on https://localhost:1234/AdventureWorks.svc/.

AdventureWorks OData Service Resources

Iteration 2 will address the following user story:

As a frontend developer, I want to consume the AdventureWorks OData feed so that I can use entity data within a business workflow.

The sample will show how to create a QueryFeed workflow activity that can consume any OData feed url and return an enumeration of entity properties. The sample further shows how to create an EntityProperties activity which allows a user designing a workflow to drop a TablePartPublisher into the activity. A TablePartPublisher can be consumed by any client to render entity properties. For example, a Word Add-in can consume EntityProperties and a TablePartPublisher to render an Open XML table. Iteration 2 will show how this is done.

I have most of the code for iteration 2 complete, but not quite ready to publish. I plan to publish iteration 2 in about two weeks. For now, I’ll show you a sample of each AdventureWorks OData resource. Each example table was created by running the custom activities from within Word.

My next blog post will dive into how to create OData workflow activates. Custom activity designers that consume OData metadata and use LINQ to project entity xml into entity classes will be discussed. The metadata entity classes are used to provide expression editor items.

CompanySales Example

QueryFeed Url

https://localhost:1234/AdventureWorks.svc/CompanySales?$top=2&$orderby=OrderYear asc

Result

ManufacturingInstructions Example

QueryFeed Url

https://localhost:1234/AdventureWorks.svc/ManufacturingInstructions?$top=2&$select=ProductName,Instructions,SetupHours

Result

ProductCatalog Example

QueryFeed Url

https://localhost:1234/AdventureWorks.svc/ProductCatalog?$filter=CultureID eq 'en' and ProductSubcategory eq 'Pedals'&$top=2&$select=ProductName,ProductSubcategory,Description,ListPrice

Results

TerritorySalesDrilldown Example

QueryFeed Url

https://localhost:1234/AdventureWorks.svc/TerritorySalesDrilldown?$filter=SalesPersonID eq 275&$top=2

Result

WorkOrderRouting Example

QueryFeed Url

https://localhost:1234/AdventureWorks.svc/WorkOrderRouting?$top=2&$select=WorkOrderID,ProductNumber,ProductName,ScheduledStartDate,ActualStartDate,ScheduledEndDate,ActualEndDate

Result