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sharepoint-2010outlook-2010sharepoint2010-bcs

How to connect Outlook to an external list, which uses external connector in DLL

The task: connect Outlook with the external list, which was created in Visual Studio and uses SAP connector (sapnco.dll).

What I've done:

  1. Created this external list. I can see all information in SP.
  2. Chose its Office Item Type as Appointment.
  3. Pressed the Connect to Outlook button, it installed automatically generated VSTO and appared in the Outlook. But I can't see any items there.
  4. When I am pressing the Synchronization status, I can see the error in loading Assembly "sapnco, Version=3.0.0.42, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=50436dca5c7f7d23"

My questions:

  1. Is it possible to add a dll to vsto? Or maybe I can workaround it in some way?
  2. Where can I find additional information about my issue (and what is happening behind the scenes when Outlook uses SP external list)?

Every suggestions are very appreciated.

PS: I tried to use BCS Solution Packaging Tool and BCS Artifact Generator but with no result. I get the errors: "OIR.CONFIG file not found" in the BCS Solution Packaging Tool

"An error occurred while importing the BDC Model. Details: ".", hexadecimal value 0x00 is an invalid character. Line 2. Position 1." in the BCS Artifact Generator.

PPS: I know one workaround. I can create webservice for fetching data from SAP, and use it (I think I could use it without additional dlls). But maybe somebody could propose more suitable approach?

UPDATE1: link to the copy of this question question on the Sharepoint stackexchange.

Solution

  • Unfortunately I haven't found a way to do it directly. Nothing changed in SP2013. I get the same error.

    So I decided to add aditional layer for my data and created OData WebService, which fetches data from SAP using SAP Connector (sapnco.dll) and created External content type and External list which use this WebService. In such a case there is no need in additional dll and I was able to connect this list to Outlook (after mapping its fields to the Office Item Type).

    PS: I stumbled in an issue when mapped OData data source to Office Item Type. If you have the same issue, you can find workaround here.