What is Business Connectivity Services?
Constant and reliable communication in the dynamic modern business environment is more of a necessity than a luxury. It is via Business Connectivity Services that businesses gain the very tools and infrastructure they need to remain connected, cooperative, and thriving.
No matter how small a startup or how large your corporation is, the correct BCS can make a phenomenal difference in your day-to-day functioning, productivity, and customer satisfaction levels.
What is business connectivity services?
This has been one of the most prominent questions people ask.
Well, keeping that in mind, we would want you to have an in-depth idea of Business Connectivity Services or BCS.
Thus, we have curated this article especially to give you all the important details before you make any decision.
So, let’s begin.
What Is Business Connectivity Services?
Constant and reliable communication in the dynamic modern business environment is more of a necessity than a luxury.
It is via Business Connectivity Services that businesses gain the very tools and infrastructure they need to remain connected, cooperative, and thriving.
No matter how small a startup or how large your corporation is, the correct BCS can make a phenomenal difference in your day-to-day functioning, productivity, and customer satisfaction levels.
Business connectivity services add-in outlook what is it? The business connectivity services add-in to Outlook is a utility that brings external business data right into your Outlook interface.
Productivity improves for the user, as now you can seamlessly connect to the database CRM system, or other business applications from Outlook while dealing with and responding to your business information.
What is business connectivity services in SharePoint 2013?
The Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2013 is a powerful feature wherein the integration between SharePoint and the external data system would be smooth.
BCS gives the feel of having connected to these external pieces of data, as though they sit within SharePoint itself; it might be databases or even web services.
This will ensure increased access to data and collaboration aspects, and thus, business processes can also be streamlined.
What is a Business Data Connectivity Service?
The Business Data Connectivity service or BDC is a feature of SharePoint developed by Microsoft to bring in external data without hassle into SharePoint applications quickly.
This helps the business connect, fetch, and work with the data coming in from other sources like SQL databases, web services, or even proprietary systems to make the workflow better and faster for improved decision-making.
What is the business data connectivity service Sharepoint 2016?
Business Data Connectivity service is another feature in SharePoint 2016 that brings external data into SharePoint Applications with greater ease.
It makes an easy way through which one would connect and then work with the data coming from other sources, like databases and web services, to facilitate business procedures through enhanced access to the data in one place and in real-time so that people could make the right decisions and be on the same page when needed.
How BCS Benefits You
BCS simplifies tasks for developers, experienced users, and IT professionals. The following are some of the ways in which BCS aids you.
- Display external data in SharePoint and Office applications from enterprise apps, web services, and OData services.
- Integrate Office behaviors like Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks with external data and services.
- Enable full data interaction with write-back abilities from SharePoint and Office to external business objects and system data.
- Allow external data and processes to be used offline.
- Bridge the gap between people, unstructured documents, and the structured data stored in external systems.
Working Module Of Business Connectivity Services
Business Connectivity Services consists of a server-side and client-side component.
Both can be integrated into a single solution. The two components function independently but share common configuration data.
The configuration data on the server side is stored in an external content type within the Business Data Connectivity Metadata Store database.
On the client side, the configuration data is stored in a BDC model on the client’s side cache.
The BDC model represents the external content type that is then brought into the Office client as an import.
Therefore, there are server and client-based components that can connect to the very same sources of external content but are differentiated by user interface, data storage, and service execution.
Server Side Approaches
Business Connectivity Services enables direct browser-based reading and writing of external data on SharePoint sites.
To connect to an external data source, the external system must be first defined within an external content type that Business Connectivity Services understands.
This content type will include the name of the external system, data source type, type of authentication, the location where the connection is identified for operations, and optional filters and sorting instructions so that a user only gets the results he needs in the correct order.
Client Side Approaches
In the client-side variety of Business Connectivity Services solutions, the Office applications read and write the external data.
A client-side program can run without using SharePoint. Some of the Office applications support only reading external data.
The following table summarizes the actions that can be performed-how the programs use the data-and issues about connection.
Examples Of BCS Or Business Connectivity Services
Business Connectivity Services can be used to construct numerous kinds of data fusion strategies. There are some examples here.
1. Business Connectivity Services can be used for an internal technical help desk.
The knowledge base of the technicians working in this help desk and the associated support tickets reside in two separate databases; neither database is a part of SharePoint Server.
Business Connectivity Services enable the organization to go to both sources, pull data, filter it, and sort out the desired information for presentation so that it can interact in an external list in SharePoint Server.
The help desk technicians can manipulate the data, provided with proper permissions. Those calling in for support can only search for their currently open support tickets, where they want to check on status.
Support tickets can be routed through predefined processes as well.
2. A sales dashboard application will let the sales associates of an organization find whatever information they want with ease and enter new data.
The solution brings in customer information and sales orders via Business Connectivity Services.
Whatever data related to the sales analytics, individual team members’ sales performance data, sales leads, and those data that deal with a customer’s contact details and orders are visible to team members.
They can also see their daily schedules and what the managers have given them to perform, and they can collaborate directly with their team members and see the news in their branch of the industry, all within a web browser.
In Word 2016, managers can automatically bridge data from external systems to create monthly status reports.
How Does Business Connectivity Services Differ From Other Solutions?
Business Connectivity Services introduces a coherent way to interact with external data in SharePoint Server with Office 2016 solutions.
It presents the possibilities not only to develop custom Java script solutions, data connections, and web parts but also to offer Office apps consuming external data or Business Connectivity Services APIs.
These imply particular ‘roles’ in isolation from one another but pool their expertise to facilitate the easy integration of large data volumes.
- Business Connectivity Services connects to this data outside using an external content type. This content type is centrally stored and shared between multiple Business Connectivity Services solutions. External content types bring the external data into SharePoint Server and Office 2016. As far as servers and clients go, the Business Connectivity Services system stays pretty much the same. For this reason, the developer can define an external content type, and that external content type could be applied in both the client as well as the server solutions.
- In Business Connectivity Services, since the centralized infrastructure handles the authentication for security transactions with external systems, as a developer creates an external content type, they provide information about the protocol and credentials to use for authentication. Whatever connector will be used for connecting is then configured, and this configuration is passed on to it. End users thus need no additional credentials to function with external data in SharePoint Server. On the client side, the first thing that the user does is enter the required credentials. These are then stored on the Windows client.
- Business Connectivity Services integrates into its infrastructure to leverage standard SharePoint Server features like Search, which indexes external data sources and security trims to show users only what they have permission to see-like any other SharePoint Server search result.
Wrap Up
In effect, modern businesses seek to reduce operation complexity and, at the same time, increase collaboration within the organization. This understanding of “What Is Business Connectivity Services?” is quite essential in this regard.
It connects different business systems to give integrated data and better productivity. Ultimately, business connectivity services offer real-time data access, solid communication channels, and workflow management.
Business investment in them not only optimizes business processes but also provides the competitive edge to stay ahead in today’s fast-moving marketplace.
Business connectivity services can, therefore, transform any business into an organization that is more agile, responsive, and connected.
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