In this simple Article trying to show how SharePoint Designer 2010 more the External Content Type to External Database are very easy to create and can be integrated with our SharePoint Portals.

You can download SharePoint Designer 2010 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=d88a1505-849b-4587-b854-a7054ee28d66&displaylang=en

For this Example I will create a Database in SQL Server and will use SharePoint Designer 2010 to create the connections and use as a mirror from our SharePoint Portal using List and the Database.

The first thing we need to do, is connect to SQL Server and create our Database call “Contacts” and add the Table “Contact” with the following fields. 

When we create the External Content Type. We  will need to associate the Content Type, in this case i am using the Generic List, then we can create the Connection to the external Data Source.

After create the Connection to the Database we can define what Columns we will use and what operations we will add our custom List. For this example i select all Operation they came default.

This operation are very important because the Business rules are defined in each operation. After we create the diferent operations we can create the Custom List and define the how will be the Operation and add the Name for our custom List. 

If you try to access the New Custom List Call “Custom Contact” you will see we will not have access to the Business Data Connectivity. To Resolve this issue we will need to give Access and permissions to users to the Custom External Content Type BDC connection in the Central administration. 

Access to Central Administration Page and select the option “Service Application Tab> Manage Service Application”. There you select the Service “Business Data Connectivity Service” then select “Manage”. 

This Option will list all External Content Type, choose the External Content Type we create and select the option “Set Object Permission”, this option will allow to add users to the BDC and manage the permissions to the Custom List. 

After the correct permissions are given we can Access to Data on our custom Contact List and start creating new Item and all the other options and operation we define to the same List. 

Hope you like this litle Article about connect Database Content to SharePoint Portal using the Externa Content Types and BCS.Thank you.