Chapter 2. Understanding the application definition file
This chapter covers
Our first chapter was an introduction into the business problems the Business Data Catalog is trying to solve, and how you can use your line-of-business (LOB) data within SharePoint. We briefly mentioned that, before you can use your LOB data within SharePoint, you need to create an XML application definition file that lets SharePoint know how to connect to your LOB system and get the data from it. This chapter will focus on that application definition file in detail. Although there are tools now available for creating the application definition file, it’s still important to understand what these files are doing in case you need to edit or troubleshoot an error. Initially we’ll discuss how to connect to the line-of-business system using the file.