SP2013: create webpart for external list

Hi there,
I have created an external content type and a external list for several entities from an sql server database. What I want to do now is, to develop a webpart / form (most likely in Visual Studio 2012) where I can add functionality to that external list. E.g.
I want to use an file picker dialog in order to select a document library and store it's ID to a field in the external list. Stuff like that.
Can anyone give me some points to start from? Actually I have read a lot about the basics of webpart developement, but in that case I'm not sure how to start extending this external list to a GUI with several functions for the users.
Would be awesome to get some help here,
kind regards, Jill

Hello Jill,
Please check the below post below it addresses the same question
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/06389ca3-9148-4de8-ba08-f275564358f4/external-list-with-custom-forms-neweditdisplay?forum=sharepointdevelopmentprevious
Hope that helps|Amr Fouad|MCTS,MCPD sharePoint 2010

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Rich text data type for external list

Hi,
I need to create an external list with one column as rich text type where they can highlight the text and all.
How this can be done, since with external lists the column is rendered as single line of text?

Hi,
External content types are made up of fields whose types are a subset of the primitive types of .NET. For each such .NET type, a rudimentary mapping to SharePoint’s field controls exists, describing a field’s visual appearance. Fields of type string for
instance will, on the new and edit forms, render as a single-line text field. With regular lists, using the browser interface, you can easily turn a string field into a multi-line text area or a Rich Text field, but not so with external lists. At least not
unless your forms are InfoPath-based.
Please take a look at these resources:
Evaluating Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010 for web service, read/write use
Customizing the External list
Multi line text box in External List edit form
Reference:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/0fcb5a9f-8445-4a37-9e60-ac5e9e14e8f1/sharepoint-designer-external-content-type-shows-single-line-text?forum=sharepointgeneralprevious
Thanks,
Eric
Forum Support
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No time or username recorded for External Lists

I'm using an external list which is displaying empty values for the Created and Modified fields. The effect is
'Created At '
and
'Modified At '
Is there something I can do to rectify this situation? When a record on an external DB is modified or added through the External List it would be common to want to track this. I'm guessing this is a custom solution.
Love them all...regardless. - Buddha

http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/sharepoint-help/differences-between-native-and-external-lists-HA102771000.aspx
Native List Feature
Supported in External Lists?
More information
Add, modify, and delete index columns
No
Can be defined in the external data source.
If this helped you resolve your issue, please mark it Answered

Column header filtering not functioning for external lists

I have a problem with column header filtering on external lists, specific for columns of Number and Date types.
When the site's regional settings are in English (United States) filtering works fine, but if I choose any other regional setting with different number formatting (ie Dutch) then filtering on these columns gives no results.
When clicking on the column header filter dropdown, the numbers to filter on are displayed with thousands seperators where the numbers in the views are not formatted as seen in attached screenshot.
Filtering on custom sharepoint list with these regional settings is working fine, it is just on external lists, on number and date fields and regional setting is not English.
I have tried all different kind of regional settings on the client and the server, but no results.
Anybody has a clue?
Clicking on the column header shows all available filter values (with thousand seperator). Selecting one value gives no results:
No results after selecting a filter value

Hi,
According to your post, my understanding is that you had an issue about column filter in external list.
We can use the SharePoint Manager to change the column type to “single line of text”, then you would filter column in the external list.
There is a similar thread for your reference:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fe67d581-6e7b-4770-b296-8ec0f9b5b769/not-able-to-filter-or-sort-by-list-column-headers-for-external-data-fields-ideas?forum=sharepointgeneralprevious
Thanks,
Jason
Forum Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact
[email protected]
Jason Guo
TechNet Community Support

SharePoint 2010 Present Wrong Timezone for External List of External Content Type

External content is hosted on an independent SQL server DB from the SharePoint server. External content lists shows datetime fields 5 hours earlier as opposed to Eastern standard time but Web parts display data correctly.
Yes, timezones on both servers are correct. Timezones settings in SharePoint have been checked and all appear correct. There are several places for settings. Is there a checklist in case something was missed. Our SharePoint administrator has
looked for the cause and cannot determine.
I poured through other blogs and issues with external content and timezone on this site including "External Content Type Saving Dates in UTC".
Please provide a list for timezone settings such as global settings for a site, collection, external content, SharePoint 2010 designer settings, Central Administration settings, etc.

Hi Benjamin,
Please test the following approach for your issue, exporting the BDC Metadata Model from SharePoint Designer and change the normalization to use local time, and let us know the results.
http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/91516/timestamp-in-sharepoint-external-content-type-not-matching-value-in-sql-table
http://www.shillier.com/archive/2010/09/01/why-are-my-date-fields-wrong-in-business-connectivity-servces.aspx
https://calshare.berkeley.edu/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=9
Thanks
Daniel Yang
TechNet Community Support

Creating icons for external drives...

I'm using a Mini, so naturally I have an arsenal of external drives.
I often use 2 or 3 at a time, and at a glance, the orange icons blend together. I'd like to have them easily identified by a custom icon. I have the skill to create these icons on Windows systems, but how is it done on the OS X?

It's easy to create icons with CocoThumbX 3.1 (freeware). Have fun!
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17460/cocothumbx
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Looking for a way to provide a subscription like service through an external list

I have a sql server database containing issue tickets that have been opened.
I have a second database that contains the names of the various devices and software packages against which one can report issues.
A user asked if there was a way for us to provide a way to "subscribe" to particular devices, so that any time an issue arose relating to that issue, information could be sent.
I have been playing the past week or so with external lists.
I was wondering if there is a way to set up things using infopath and sharepoint so that:
a. the user is provided with a drop down/scroll list of the various devices available.
b. At this time, this list is pretty long - more than a thousand.
c. After selecting the item, the user would be shown a sharepoint list of all issues relating to the device in question.
d. The user would then be able to bookmark the page, or perhaps even set up an alert, when they wanted to see whether anything new occurred.
e. RSS would really be nice, but I know that out of the box, SharePoint does not support RSS for external lists. I don't have the skills to write something to provide that sort of add on functionality.
Is this something doable? Has anyone set up something like this?
Thanks

As per your requirement. Creating custom solution is only option.
http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/85582/alerts-on-sharepoint-2013-external-list
I have the same issue but I believe that even though setting alerts on external lists is now possible it's not easy to do in practice if you're not a programmer. From what I've read you need to write code using Visual Studio and create an "event receiver".
This is really disappointing and I hope Microsoft address this issue in a future service pack, or at least provide an easy step-by-step guide (including code) which the average SharePoint administrator could follow to achieve the desired result. I did manage
a partial work-around by creating a list in SharePoint and adding external columns

How to create dashboard through CSOM to show workflow from external lists

We have following requirement.
SharePoint 2013 standard edition environment is installed. SO no BI site template is possible.
Development has to be through CSOM only.
Vendor data is stored in external database in SQL server 2012.
There are number of workflow running for external lists.
Now the question is how can we create a dashboard through CSOM to show status of various workflows? How to develop through CSOM?
Thanks in advance for help.

Hello ,
You can use below libraries for creating charts in sharepoint 2013 .
https://github.com/CardinalNow/ChartsInSharePoint2013
or
http://modeln.github.io/sDashboard/
ex. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dn481315(v=office.15).aspx
I have used sDashboard This is really good .
Best
Regards Kuldeep Verma
Please remember to click "Mark As Answer" if a post solves your
problem or "Vote As Helpful" if it was useful.
here requirement is totally different as CSOM and ext database, workflow and dash board together. actual answer is different.

Setting the data source of an External List to a WCF Web Service

From SharePoint Online, I want to create/connect an External List to a SQL Azure data source. This will feed a Visio diagram so I want it to be able to refresh and dynamically retrieve
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I have a published WCF Web Service in place (Azure Website) connected to this database that consolidates data from multiple tables and returns a variety of generic lists. From
my readings, this should bypass the need for much of the security (e.g. secure store, etc...).
Can I do this? I'm not seeing an option to Create an ECT as in past versions to connect to this endpoint. Do I have to create something in Visual Studio to Import? Any direction
would be much appreciated.<o:p></o:p>
Ed

Find and increase these variables in IIS: maxRequestEntityAllowed and uploadReadAheadSize
I had a similar issue a while back due to these settings. They control data to and from ISAPI connections (of which CF is one) according to this article:
http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/serverruntime
Sorry, I cant recall off hand where exactly those settings are in IIS but a quick Google search should turn it up for you.

Accessing External List that uses BCS with CAML Query

Hi,
I have an external list that uses BCS to sql server. I can view the list with Lists.asmx web service GetLlistItems. However, I get an parameter error when trying to add to the list with UpdateListItems. I will be changing over sharepoint lists to sql
tables using BCS to connect to them and I need it to be seamless to clients that do CRUD operations using CAML. Are there any instructions on creating such an external list that maintains compatibility with ordinary sharepoint lists?

CRUD options are fine.
Here's what I've done.
Created ECT.
Created Read list & read item options.
Set a limit for 200 items (for testing purposes only)
Created external list based upon ECT created above.
Opened external list in web browser and I'm able to open, edit & add items without issue.
What I'd like is to have a simple HTML type form above the list (like in a Content Editor web part with a few text boxes and a 'search' button. I've tried the link below but it either crashes Sharepoint Designer when I'm defining the parameters or
if it works there the button doesn't work.
http://arsalkhatri.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/external-list-with-bcs-search-filters-finders/

Infopath 2010 Web Form will not run code behind or load External Lists after FormEvents_Loading added

Building a form to edit and create data in external list. The business rules do not allow for creation in an external list bound InfoPath form. (We are cascade filtering multiple drop down lists from external content type).
All works to write code behind to push new record or update record in external list. The big issue came when trying to add FormEvents_loading event to the code to capture URL parameter. I want to be able to pass the Primary Key of the record to
edit, load the data into the form and allow editing and submit. I have tested by manually entering the data and the form works. The form will no longer load data from external lists for the drop downs and shows an error stating "The custom code
in the form cannot be run. This functionality may be deactivated
on the server. For more information, contact the server farm administrator."
I think this is related to moving from the normal forms services into sandboxed code service. Is there a way to access external content types and still have form loading event capture URL parameters?
The code to capture the URL is listed below:
XPathNavigator myNav1 = this.MainDataSource.CreateNavigator();
string InputF1 = string.Empty;
if (e.InputParameters.ContainsKey("AuthPK"))
InputF1 = e.InputParameters["AuthPK"];
myNav1.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:CodeData/my:DatabaseUpdateStatus", this.NamespaceManager).SetValue(InputF1);
myNav1.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:CodeData/my:pk_tblOFCAuthorizations", this.NamespaceManager).SetValue(InputF1);
else
myNav1.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:CodeData/my:pk_tblOFCAuthorizations", this.NamespaceManager).SetValue("0");
Is there another way to pass parameters to the form? I tried using web part connection, but that does not work with code behind form at all, which would stop me from updating external list.

Hi,
As this question is more related to InfoPath development, I suggest you post it to Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) Forum, more experts will assist you with this issue.
Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) Forum:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?forum=vsto
Best Regards,
Lisa Chen
Forum Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact
[email protected]

Connect Outlook 2013 to Sharepoint 2010 External List fails

Clicking Connect to Outlook in a SharePoint 2010 external list (ECT) produces the following message:
"The Microsoft Common Language Runtime 3.5 is not installed on this computer."
The client is Office 2013 Pro Plus 32-bit on Windows 8.1 64-bit with a standard installation including BCS. .Net 3.5 has been installed from Turn Windows features on or off.
On Windows 7 and Outlook 2013, clicking Connect to Outlook results in the usual running of the .vsto, but nothing happens in Outlook (SharePoint External Lists does not appear). Outlook 2010 on Windows 7 works correctly. Connecting to a standard SharePoint
contact list from Outlook 2013/Windows 8.1 works as well. Offline Synchronization for External Lists is enabled for the farm and the site.

Hi Canadian,
To synchronize external data with Office products, you must have Windows 7 or later and the following free software products: SQL Server Compact 4.0, .NET Framework 4, and WCF Data Services 5.0 for OData V3 on each client computer (If necessary, you are
automatically prompted to download the software).
Please also make sure that you select Contact, Task, Appointment or Post as the Office Item Type for the external content type and Offline Sync for external list is set to Yes when you creating the external content type.
More references:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Connect-an-external-list-to-Outlook-9f00540e-a6b8-4510-9ce1-c79e31cbc8c9?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ee557357(v=office.14).aspx
Best regards.
Thanks
Victoria Xia
TechNet Community Support

External list - filtering using URL

Hi All,
How can I apply filter using URL for external list? I know it works for SP native list.
Thanks :)

Thanks for your link. But it just works for "equal" value. How could I do for "contains" value.

Can I programmaly write data to Data Source Filter in view External List?

Hi, everybody. I need a help with external list. View in external list has parameter named "Data Source Filter" for write filter data for BCS query to DB. I wanna programmaly write data to this parameter but I haven't any ideas about class, property
or method what can write data to it. Any idea?
Aleksandr Shramko

Hi Alexksandr Shramko,
To set the filter value for a SharePoint common list, SPView.SetViewXml property is used to set the filter value. Following thread contains sample to help get a better understanding about how to use it:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/sharepoint/en-US/0ddca0f6-2b17-4f4a-9d66-f3d684ed4a11/how-to-set-orderedview-of-the-list-view-programmatically?forum=sharepointdevelopmentprevious
However, I haven’t make it work for external list. In this situation, I would suggest you to custom control to display the list item instead of customizing the existing list view filter. You can choose to use gridview or other table to show the data.
A sample here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7647941/retriving-splistitem-through-external-lists-whose-source-is-from-sql-server-08
Thanks,
Qiao Wei
TechNet Community Support

Create document set by workflow based on external list

Hello,
I'm wondering if the following is possible:
I have a external list with all my projects.
Next to that i have an document library where i place all the documents about the projects in document sets. Is it possible to automatically create the document sets based on the external list?
So when a new record is created in the database (External list) it automatically creates a document set. (The document sets have an external data column which refers to the projects external data)
I was thinking of an workflow, but i don't know how to accomplish this. I'm just a beginner with SharePoint.
Kind regards,
Robbert-Jan

Hi Robbert ,
According to your description, my understanding is that you want to create a document set for an external list in SharePoint 2013.
For achieving your demand, you can refer to the article:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394479(v=office.14).aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chandru/archive/2013/08/10/sp2013-creating-document-set-using-workflow.aspx
One thing to notice is you cannot associate workflow with External List because workflow engine cannot run on back end system.
Reference:
http://siddiq-sharepoint2010.blogspot.in/2011/12/bussniess-connectivity-services.html
Best Regards,
Eric
Eric Tao
TechNet Community Support

SP2013: create webpart for external list

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