Entity Class

  • Article

Represents an entity such as a customer or sales order that is registered in the Business Data Catalog.

Inheritance Hierarchy

System.Object
  Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration.MetadataObject
    Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration.AccessControlledMetadataObject
      Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration.IndividuallySecurableMetadataObject
        Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration.Entity

Namespace:  Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration
Assembly:  Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
<SharePointPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand, ObjectModel := True)> _
<SharePointPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.Demand, ObjectModel := True)> _
Public Class Entity _
    Inherits IndividuallySecurableMetadataObject

'Usage
Dim instance As Entity

[SharePointPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand, ObjectModel = true)]
[SharePointPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.Demand, ObjectModel = true)]
public class Entity : IndividuallySecurableMetadataObject

Remarks

After you define an entity, you can pick the entity from the Entity Picker, display entity instances in the Business Data Web Parts and lists, and search using Enterprise Search. You must also define the following for entities: identifiers and Finder and SpecificFinder method instances. You may additionally define instance and static GenericInvokers and ViewAccessors.

  • Identifiers   An identifier enables the Business Data Catalog to uniquely identify an entity instance. If you define an entity without an identifier, then that entity cannot have actions on it, cannot be searched or indexed, and cannot be used in any of the Business Data features except the Related List Web Part. However, it is sometimes still useful to define an Entity without Identifiers - if all you want to do is display a list of some or all of them (a good example is 'CostCenters').

  • Finder and SpecificFinder methods   Finder methods enable you to use your entity in a Business Data List Web Part. If you do not define Finder methods, your entity cannot be used in these Web Parts. SpecificFinder methods enable additional functionality such as the ability to have actions, to be searched and indexed, and to be used in Business Data features. If you do not define SpecificFinder methods for an entity, it cannot have actions on it, cannot be searched or indexed, and cannot be used in any of the Business Data features except the Related List Web Part.

  • GenericInvokers. Generic invokers allow you to execute arbitrary logic in a back end system. However, the client must supply the full complex arguments for the invocation.

  • ViewAccessors. Every instance of an entity is said to be a particular 'view' of the Entity. A View is defined by the set of fields on the EntityInstance. All Views share the identifier fields. ViewAccessors allow changing the current view of the EntityInstance to another view.

Property

Type

Required

Default Value

Limits/Accepted Values

Comments

Title

System.String

No

None

Name of the TypeDescriptor that represents the display value (title) of an Entity object. This value is the default title of business data search results and the default display value in the business data column.

__BdcLastModifiedTimestamp

System.String

No

None

Name of the TypeDescriptor in the return value of the IDEnumerator that represents the last modified date of an instance.

Use this property to enable incremental search crawls.

Audit

System.Boolean

No

true

true

false

If true, an entry is written to the Shared Resource Provider's audit log every time one of this entity’s methods is executed.

DefaultAction

System.String

No

None

Name of the Action that is used as the hyperlink in business data search results, business data columns, and elsewhere. This is an auto created property.

Thread Safety

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

See Also

Reference

Entity Members

Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Administration Namespace