Business Data List Connector for SharePoint Data Integration

Pros

We have had success in using this to connect and pull data out of some Excel files that are created from various reporting tools. Allows us to gather our data in one common reporting interface - SharePoint.

Cons

We have seen some issues in the past with the auto-update timer freezing but these seem to all be fixed in the newest version for 2010.

Additional Comments

Support has been great - they are very responsive and have helped us thru a few problems. Very easy to contact via e-mail.

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

Great product! Used in many ways. The Active Directory integration is a great feature.

Cons

Nothing to dislike.

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

Easy to deploy; much easier to use and more functionality than the standard in-built tool in SharePoint

Cons

Haven't used it in anger yet to be able to provide more thorough feedback

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

It's really easy to use! Much better than the BDC!

Cons

I miss the update functionality, but they've said it'll come soon.

Additional Comments

Keep up the good work!

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

The application was extremely easy to install. Even with our very limited SharePoint experience we were able configure and use it without much trouble. When we ran into problems (due primarily to our inexperience), tech support was able to fix all of them. They went out of their way to verify everything worked and that we were satisfied with the product. The program works exactly as described, and has not crashed or caused any errors. We highly recommend it.

Cons

Nothing.

Additional Comments

We needed to monitor a frequently updated, external database in order to both populate a SharePoint list and initiate workflows. As SharePoint's BCS is extremely limited, we were forced to contact outside programmers who provided a quote of ~$10k. Fortunately, we stumbled upon the Layer2 BDLC which essentially made it possible to directly interface SP2010 with our external database.

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

It met our needs perfectly using Sharepoint Foundation 2010, rather than having to upgrade to Sharepoint Enterprise. Mixing enterprise data (ERP, CRM and others) within a real sharepoint list with additional sharepoint fields solved some key data integration and visibility problems for us and now allows many users to live in Sharepoint rather than trying to find information across multiple systems.

Cons

Nothing. Works as advertised.

Additional Comments

Technical support has been very responsive as well, even on an issue or two that really were from our limited sharepoint knowledge rather than issues with BDLC. They helped us get through those also.

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 4.5
• Performance: 4.5

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Pros

Idiot-proof product, very well designed. Simple to install and deploy, works as advertised. Love it.

Cons

One very minor limitation - if it generates a GUID for you, it has to post back to the same column name ([bdlcGUID]) in every SQL table. Easy workaround in InfoPath forms, though.

Additional Comments

Makes you wonder why BCS is so limited?

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 4
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

Simplicity, speed, feature set

Cons

Price

• Price: 4
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

It's easy to install, does everything for you, and is dependable.

Cons

Nothing. It's great. It would be cool if there was an option for it to notify of updates to the tool and download them for you, however.

Additional Comments

Worked with Layer2 on an issue we had with this tool. They worked closely with us over a few weeks time and had the issue resolved. Their technical support staff are dependable.

• Price: 4
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

Rapid deployment (single solution file), very easy to configure and good support. We were after a quick and simple solution to allow the retrieval of data from various data sources without resorting to the BDC - this fits the bill perfectly!

Cons

Nothing as yet! :o)

• Price: 4.5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 4.5

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Pros

brilliant product, easy to install, easy to cinfigure, and works just as it shoud.

Cons

nothing

• Price: 4
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

Very simple to install and set up, works as advertised

Cons

Nothing to dislike, it works very well

Additional Comments

I'd like to have a log for every sync update.

• Price: 4.5
• Deployment Time: 4.5
• Needs Met: 4.5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

The best part about Layer2.de's BDLC is it's straightforward, code-free integration with multiple database types. Solution deployment, connection string setup, column creation and validation, and a read/write flag - it's almost too simple. This connector provides a mechanism for integrating business data into SharePoint's powerful viewing and workflow capabilities in the simplest possible way. Background updates, item-level delta changes, and read/write capability allow developers and power users to make full use of the SharePoint object model for line of business data and fields with less if not any code. We have used this product to enable enterprise, data-driven taxonomy through the content type hub. We have delivered time-saving custom solutions for business process, dashboarding, and alerting as well. I highly recommend the BDLC to any SharePoint development group or shop.

Cons

This product has been extremely useful from a solution delivery standpoint, and functional for the business as well.

• Price: 4
• Deployment Time: 4
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

The BDLC gives me a great method to sync information with SharePoint lists. Now that it can also be used in the cloud, makes it much more interesting.

Cons

I would like to see much more options with scheduling the synchronisation.

Additional Comments

The customer support is very good and prompt, and information and knowledgebase can easily be accessed from the website.

• Price: 4
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 4
• Performance: 5

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Pros

It's done everything I've asked of it, and the sales team has been great to work with. It's so easy to make a quick connection and populate a list! This has been a real time-saver for me as a SharePoint admin, and it has allowed me to create some really useful lists and calendars for my users.

Cons

I've only been using it a few weeks so I haven't run into any problems, or reached that point where I can start making constructive criticisms. So far it's been pretty flawless.

• Price: 3
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

1. Simple to install & use 2. Fast & efficient (replicates data from External source). I have an AS400 across the WAN replicating data once a day. 3. Preserves List Features (unlike the limitations of OOTB External Data List)

Cons

None so far.

Additional Comments

1. Would like to see parameters in the Select statement. Would leave implementation details to Layer2. 2. The username/password are in plain text. So had to change List Permissions to have users as 'Contributors' or 'Visitors' - most of my users are 'Designers' as part of empowering everyone.

• Price: 3.5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 4.5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 4.5

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Pros

This product is a must have stuff for every SharePoint guy who want to integrate list with back-end systems. Easy to install and setup. What I have done is to define a IBM AS/400 database table on a SharePoint 2010 list, then I can keep them sync with BDLC timer job. It even provides the CRUD(Create, Update and Delete) functionality on SharePoint list item edit UI, then the results will sync to IBM AS/400 source table immediately. Since it works fine as expected, this let me interested to do more testing like SharePoint list Alert and Item Event Receiver(Item Updated), etc. Guess what? If we update the source database table on IBM AS/400, when timer job completed(intervals set by central administration site), We can see the result updated on SharePoint list, the mail and diagnostic log entry write by Item Event Receiver. Fantastic!

Cons

Currently, none!

• Price: 4
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 4
• Performance: 4

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Pros

Functionality of tool was 100% exact as per description. Ease of setup and use. Ability to connect to various ODBC data sources.

Cons

Have to create new site versus convert exising one. Would like to be able to have function to send email on timer job updates.

Additional Comments

Email support has been spot on.

• Price: 3
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 5
• Compatibility: 4
• Performance: 5

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Pros

It allows us to easily integrate business applications with SharePoint. The great benefit is that you don't loose any list functionalities and the setup is very fast.

Cons

Per list it's not possible to write-back to more than 1 table.

• Price: 3.5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 3.5
• Compatibility: 5
• Performance: 5

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Pros

The Business Data List Connector (BDLC) product is fantastic! The ability to connect to virtually any 3rd party data source and work with that data in a native SharePoint list has been quite valuable to us.

Cons

The only downside to the BDLC at this point is the inability to write back to the data source. Looking forward to the addition of that feature in a future release.

• Price: 3.5
• Deployment Time: 4
• Needs Met: 4.5
• Compatibility: 4
• Performance: 4

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Pros

Great tool for anyone looking to pull data from other sources fast and easy. The list integration is suprisingly easy and did exactly as discribed. A must have for anyone looking for something other than the built in tools of SharePoint.

Cons

.

• Price: 3.5
• Deployment Time: 4.5
• Needs Met: 4
• Compatibility: 3.5
• Performance: 3.5

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Pros

I liked the fat that it seemed it would be a great connector to our existing MySQL DB application and to enable us to do writebacks to MySQL from SharePoint.

Cons

So far I have been battling a few issues that have meant that I cannot connect to perform any writeback at all for a table that I have made customizations to the column types. Now it's throwing SQL errors on a brandnew table that I have created to try fix the old one. The older table being already deleted now. I'm very frustrated that once you edit/change a column that was created by BLDC it just breaks and there is seemingly no online support manuals etc to aid a fix. The Date functions are seemingly not compatible, maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Additional Comments

I'm working on 2 very simple critical tools that I convinced the CEO to spend $2k on this tool and I'm getting further and further from the goal now with no fix in sight.

• Price: 3.5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 3.5
• Compatibility: 2.5
• Performance: 3

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Pros

Very easy to install

Cons

Didn't exactly meet my needs. In addition, when cancelling out of the list creation, it took an inordinate amount of time for Sharepoint to process the cancellation.

Additional Comments

I only tested connecting to an Exchange Server, unsuccessfully. A permissions setup on the server was probably needed,but even were I successful it would achieve what I really wanted to do.

• Price: 5
• Deployment Time: 5
• Needs Met: 1
• Compatibility: 4.5
• Performance: 0.5

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