Do Business Connectivity Services use live data - sharepoint

In SharePoint 2010 the business data catalog will be replaced by Business Connectivity Services.
With BDC the data in SharePoint would only be synchronized with the datasource when requested.
Is this still the case with BCS or does this work with live, up to date, data?

Data in External Lists is being retrieved on fly. When user opens a page SharePoint retrieves list data from external source.
When you are using BCS in External Column selected value for that column is stored to SharePoint list until you hit refresh.

Related

Data entry for power bi report without additional direct query database

Goal:
Integrate power apps with power bi (vica verse) without setting up a SQL database for direct query to allow data input of internal tables to power bi report.
The database we are reading from cannot be used for data entry purposes.
E.g. there is a business process whereby a client must track the location of each asset. This is done by creating a table of a distinct id of each asset and then a data entry drop down is applied so users can update the location of each asset which is updated in the report visuals.
Resources:
https://www.google.com/search?q=integrate+power+bi+and+power+apps+direct+quert&oq=integrate+power+bi...
https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/Filtering-data-in-PowerApps-based-on-Power-B...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/powerapps-custom-visual
Solution attempt 1: creating a sharepoint list to store user entry results. An app was created and embedded within PowerBI, however the power bi report did filter results to the app. Likewise results were not immediately shown in the PowerBi report. SharePoint does not have a direct query function, and is limited to 8 refreshes a day + it could not be refreshed through the web browser, only by scheduled refreshes.
Attempted solution 2: using internal PowerBI datasets. Accessing the data from PowerBI datasets inside of powerapps seemed to be read only. Is this the case?
Question for the forum: how do you create data entry for a powerbi report without setting up another database to store results.

Extracting Sharepoint site information from Sharepoint database

How is the sharepoint data stored in the database? We had a sharepoint site which is not there anymore however the databases are still present. The names of the databases are:-
Sharepoint_AdminContent
Sharepoint_Config
WSS_Content
WSS_Search
Is it possible that I extract data from these database? Lets suppose I want data from an specific page of the site, which table should I look at for that?
Sharepoint_AdminContent: Central Administration content database. It stores all configuration data for the Central Administration site collection.
Sharepoint_Config: configuration database. The configuration database contains data about the following:
SharePoint databases
Internet Information Services (IIS) web sites
Web applications
Trusted solutions
Web Part packages
Site templates
Web applications
Distributed Cache configuration objects
WSS_Content: Content Database. Content databases store all content for a site collection. This includes site documents or files in document libraries, list data, Web Part properties, audit logs, and sandboxed solutions, in addition to user names and rights.
WSS_Search: Search service database. This database is used for the search services. It contains the information that is required for searching content.
The data from an specific page of the site should be stored in the content database WSS_Content.
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/technical-reference/database-types-and-descriptions

The impact of SharePoint 2016’s Excel Services Deprecations

I know you have to switch to Excel Online in Office Online Server Preview, but I’ve also read that these features are deprecated:
Trusted data providers
Trusted data connection libraries
Unattended service account
Here is what I use Excel Services for:
Connecting to a multidimensional/MDX Cube (NO TABULAR model is ever used)
Connecting to different data sources
Using the Excel workbooks themselves as data sources for SharePoint web parts AND dashboards (PerformancePoint Services)
Excel Web Access Web Part; and again, the Excel sheet connects to a cube, accepts parameters, and it is itself a data source for other artifacts. Part or all of the workbooks are used in PerformancePoint, webparts and report parts.
Sources considered:
http://whitepages.unlimitedviz.com/2016/03/connecting-excel-to-data-with-sharepoint-2016-and-office-online-server-2016/
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn141153.aspx#bkmk_excel
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sharepoint-server-2016-whats-deprecated-removed-zeeshan-asad

Migrating Existing Access Database to Sharepoint

I have an existing Access database. This has grown in importance within the company and now others need access for data entry and running existing reports and queries.
I have a site on Office 365: E3. I have attempted to use the "Move Data" to "SharePoint", but this creates errors and queries do not function.
Uncertain how to proceed. I am relatively new to Access and extremely new to SharePoint.

SharePoint searching external database

We're looking at doing a MOSS 2007 site which will have a fairly dynamic component (an external product catalog). The external produces will be stored in a database (not managed by SharePoint) and all interaction will occur via Web Parts.
Is it possible to configure the SharePoint search to index the textual content and the external database? Or can a custom search provider be written which is also used to query the external database?
The Business Data Catalog is intended as the solution in this case.
A BDC solution is crawlable out of the box.
Unfortunately the BDC requires the Enterprise licence for SharePoint, a hefty price increase.
Any other solution will require an html interface to the database either by including the data inside the SharePoint webpages themselves or a custom set of pages.
I have not tried using a custom search provider so I cannot make a comment on doing that.
It is easy enough to include searching on both content sources as OOB SharePoint provides the ability to distinguish between content sources and has the ability to create search scopes that allow rules based on content type or url to be created.

Resources