Posted by Troy on July 2, 2010 under Business Intelligence, IT, Microsoft, Performance Management, SQL Server, SharePoint | 
In a previous post I created a simple weekly sales forecasting table which will be used as a starting point to create an External Content Type. Below is some sample data from the table:
When a External Content Type is created the data source can be a table, view, store procedures or a web services. The External Content support various operation but you must provide functionality for the following two operations:
These two operations must defined in order to use the External Content Type as an External List in SharePoint 2010. For this example I am going to create two stored procedures for the operations:
- dbo.BcsSalesForecastReadList
- dbo.BcsSalesForecastReadItem
Before the External Content Type Operations can be created we need to create the stored procedures that will be used to read an item from the external content type and list all items in the external content type. The Read List stored procedure for our sales forecast data is fairly simple. The stored procedure simple needs to return all the rows and columns we want to be available in the External Content Type. Why use a stored procedure then for this operation? For simple lists of information a using a table or view is fine but if you want to have a high level of flexibility and control then a store procedure is probably a better choice. A Web Service would provide even more power and platform independence but for our sales forecast application our approach will suffice.
dbo.BcsSalesForecastReadList
create procedure dbo.BcsSalesForecastReadList as set nocount on select EnglishMonthName + '-' + WeekNumber + '-' + SalesTerritoryRegion + '-' + Category ID, EnglishMonthName MonthName, WeekNumber, SalesTerritoryGroup SalesGroup, SalesTerritoryRegion SalesRegion, Category ProductCategory, LastYearAmount, ForecastAmount from dbo.WeeklySalesForecast
dbo.BcsSalesForecastReadItem
create procedure dbo.BcsSalesForecastReadItem @ID nvarchar(255) as set nocount on select fcst.ID, fcst.MonthName, fcst.WeekNumber, fcst.SalesGroup, fcst.SalesRegion, fcst.ProductCategory, fcst.LastYearAmount, fcst.ForecastAmount from ( select EnglishMonthName + '-' + WeekNumber + '-' + SalesTerritoryRegion + '-' + Category ID, EnglishMonthName MonthName, WeekNumber, SalesTerritoryGroup SalesGroup, SalesTerritoryRegion SalesRegion, Category ProductCategory, LastYearAmount, ForecastAmount from dbo.WeeklySalesForecast) fcst where ID = @ID
For the purposes of this demo I have created a unique Business Key (ID) which concatenates (joins) the following fields:
- EnglishMonthName
- WeekNumber
- SalesTerritoryRegion
- Category
This combination uniquely identifies each row in the forecast table. Ideally you could used an identity column or create proper indexes using the 4 columns.
Connect to the site that was created in the last post or you can use one of your existing sites. Open SharePoint Designer and open the following site:
Click on the External Content Types site object in the Navigation Pane on the right hand side. Create a New External Content Type. You should see the following screen:
Enter the following:
- Name: BcsSalesForecast
- Display Name: Bcs Sales Forecast
In the External Content Type Operation section click “Click here to discover external data sources and define operations” . You should see a screen similar to this:
Click “Add Connection” and select the Data Source Type as SQL Server. Enter in the following items:
- Database Server: (server name)
- Database Name: AdventureWorksDW2008R2
- Name (optional): Adventure Works
For this example you can connect with the User’s Identity. Look under the “Routines” section and you should see the stored procedures that were created above:
Right click on the BcsForecastReadList procedure and select “New Read List Operation”. Keep the default settings for Operation Name and Display Name. Below is a summary of the Read List wizard:
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| 1. Operation Properties |
2. Input Parameters |
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| 3. Return Parameter |
4. Read List is created |
Follow a similar process for the Read Item Operation. Right-click on the BcsForecastReadItem procedure and select “New Read Item Operation”. Below is a summary of the Read Item wizard:
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| 1. Operation Properties |
2. Input Parameters |
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| 3. Return Parameter |
4. Read Item is created |
You have now created your first External Content Type. But we cannot use it yet. In the next post I will show you how to enable security on the External Content Type and create an External List which will be displayed in the Ops Forecast site. Below is a screen shot of the External Content Type being used as an External list:
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| 1. List View |
2. View Item |
Troy
Posted by Troy on July 1, 2010 under Business Intelligence, IT, Microsoft, SharePoint, Web |
SharePoint 2010 is an excellent Platform for creating enterprise applications that leverage your current Business Intelligence infrastructure and operational systems. Of course your not going to build mission critical applications like POS or Supply Chain Ordering system but what about tracking weekly sales and expenses or building a pricing model that requires data from multiple data sources. Using a combination of SharePoint 2010 and the Office 2010 products it is possible to create robust enterprise applications with a reasonable amount of effort.
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 is what makes these applications possible. Sure you could build your application using native SharePoint list but this approach is limited and does not allow you to leverage existing systems like your corporate data warehouse. Below is a simple diagram which show how BCS allows business user’s to access external data:
The best way to learn about how these tools work is to work through a practical example. Over the next few blog posts I will walk through how to create a simple sales forecasting application. I am assuming that you have access to a desktop machine or server with at least the following software:
- SQL Server Express 2008 R2
- SharePoint 2010 Foundation Server
- SharePoint 2010 Designer
In this scenario the business users want to create a weekly forecasting model which will forecast Internet Sales by Territory by Product Category. Execute the following to create a forecasting table in the Adventure Works DW R2 database:
select fcst.* into dbo.WeeklySalesForecast from ( select dt.CalendarYear,'Week ' + convert(nvarchar(2),dt.WeekNumberOfYear) WeekNumber , dt.MonthNumberOfYear, dt.EnglishMonthName, ter.SalesTerritoryGroup, ter.SalesTerritoryRegion, cat.EnglishProductCategoryName Category, sum(fct.OrderQuantity) LastYearQuantity, sum(fct.SalesAmount) LastYearAmount, null ForecastQuantity, null ForecastAmount from dbo.FactInternetSales fct inner join dbo.DimDate dt on fct.OrderDateKey = dt.DateKey inner join dbo.DimProduct prd on fct.ProductKey = prd.ProductKey inner join dbo.DimSalesTerritory ter on fct.SalesTerritoryKey = ter.SalesTerritoryKey inner join dbo.DimProductSubcategory sub on prd.ProductSubcategoryKey = sub.ProductSubcategoryKey inner join dbo.DimProductCategory cat on sub.ProductCategoryKey = cat.ProductCategoryKey where dt.CalendarYear = 2008 group by dt.CalendarYear,dt.WeekNumberOfYear, dt.MonthNumberOfYear, dt.EnglishMonthName, ter.SalesTerritoryGroup, ter.SalesTerritoryRegion, cat.EnglishProductCategoryName) fcst
This will create a table that can be used for building the BCS. In this post we are going to simply create a SharePoint site using SharePoint Designer to host our SharePoint application using SharePoint Designer 2010. Open SharePoint Designer 2010 and open the Main Site. In my case my main site is on my laptop and can be accessed at http://localhost. From the Site Actions menu select “New Site”:
We are now going to create a new Site called Ops Forecast (http://localhost/opsforecast) use the Team Site template:
- Title: Ops Forecast
- Url Name: opsforecast
Now click Create and the site will be created. In the next post we will build 2 stored procedures and create an External Content Type which will be used as a list to view the forecast data in SharePoint.
Troy
Posted by Troy on June 7, 2010 under Microsoft, SharePoint, Web |
In order to see the Master Page menu option in the “Look and Feel” Sites Settings section in SharePoint 2010, you have to activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure. There are two features that need to be activated in SharePoint
- SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure
- SharePoint Server Publishing
These features must be activated at the web site level and not by using the Central Administration Web Application. This can cause some confusion because these settings are available in the Central Administration tool.
First, navigate to the website that where you want to activate the Publishing feature. Next, Select: Site Actions>Site Settings
Now Select, Site Collection Features from the Site Collection Administration section:
In this section you want to activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure
Go back to the Site Settings page and select Manage Site Features from the Site Actions section. This time you need to activate SharePoint Server Publishing.
Once this is activated the Master Page option will be available in the Look and Feel section for the Site Settings:
Its important to remember that this must be set up at the site level.
Troy
Posted by Troy on June 5, 2010 under Business Intelligence, Microsoft, SQL Server, SharePoint |
Business Intelligence is a core part of SharePoint 2010. Its much more than just a content management system. SharePoint 2010 has the following new features:
Business Connectivity Services
Central Administration Redesign
- Interface is much more intuitive
- UI now uses the well known Ribbon Toolbar
Claim-Based Authentication
Health Monitoring
Sandboxed Solutions
- Deploy solutions onto the Farm or into a sandbox
- Sandbox is a restricted environment which can be used to control and limit resources for a solution
- Some solutions may not work in a sandbox and are better suited for a Farm deployment
- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/ee704543.aspx
If you are planning on installing and setting up a SharePoint site I recommend checking out the following training videos from Microsoft:
Installing SharePoint 2010 (54 minutes):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sharepoint/ee518665.aspx
Setting up Your First Web App (24 minutes):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sharepoint/ee518671.aspx
I reviewed these videos and had no problems setting up a couple of web applications. I don’t recommend setting up a VM (it must be 64-bit for one thing) to run on your laptop or desktop. You will want to create the VM on a server and assign it at least 4 GB of memory. This requirement may increase if you are using a Full SQL Server Stack (Analysis Services, Reporting Services etc.) for a Business Intelligence evaluation.
My next little project will be to use Business Connectivity Services and build a simple application using external data from SQL Server 2008.
Troy
Posted by Troy on October 29, 2009 under .net, Microsoft, csharp |
I have been creating an application for work over the last couple of days which requires ADO.Net. I work in the Business Intelligence field so I do not code verify often unless I need a custom script for an SSIS package. Most of the Microsoft BI products just require a solid understanding of SQL or MDX and of course the customers business requirements. While creating the application I ran into the following error when updating the databases with changes in the dataset. I am using Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition and the database is a Compact Database.
I only received the error when I tried to update a record in the database. If I added a new record (INSERT) and saved my changes the application worked fine. Below is a screenshot of the simple app:
When you hit the save button it executes the following code:
try
{
this.Validate();
this.rulesBindingSource.EndEdit();
this.rulesTableAdapter.Update(this.ruleEngineDataSet.Rules);
MessageBox.Show("Update successful!");
}
catch (System.Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show("Update failed:\n" + ex.Message + "\n" + ex.StackTrace );
}
I placed a breakpoint on: this.Validate(); line. When I ran the program the program failed on: this.rulesTableAdapter.Update(this.ruleEngineDataSet.Rules);. Below is a print screen of the message:
The issue is with the TableAdapter. There was no UpdateCommand (which is mentioned in the error message) or DeleteCommand for the TableAdapter:
Create a new UpdateCommand by click (new) in the dropdown box. You can use the query designer to create the update statement for the CommandText property:
Once the the CommandText property was set for the UpdateCommand the program worked. Below is a link to the issue found on msdn forums:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/Vsexpressvcs/thread/6d4de721-7571-49ca-a1fc-8689ec19a94e/
Troy
