SharePoint Online Connects On-Premises

SharePoint Online customers will receive new features for access to on-premises data, sharing of data with a company’s business partners, and other functions, in an update planned for release by the end of Nov. 2011. SharePoint Online is a Microsoft-hosted service for document sharing, Web-based collaboration, and other SharePoint 2010 functions. The new features will take SharePoint Online beyond group collaboration and make it more useful as a portal to an organization’s corporate data for both employees and external partners. However, the upgrade will require some brief periods of read-only operation, and taking advantage of some features will require planning and software development effort.

Connectivity to On-Premises Data

With the new update, SharePoint Online customers can take advantage of Business Connectivity Services (BCS), an interface first delivered in SharePoint 2010 that enables users to view, update, and search selected data in sources external to SharePoint, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning systems. This can make important business systems accessible to more workers on a “self-service” basis, reducing their reliance on back-office specialists or internal network connectivity to complete tasks. For example, a CRM system could enable sales specialists in the field to access and update the CRM system through SharePoint Online while working directly at customer sites. BCS replaces the SharePoint Server 2007 Business Data Catalog (BDC) and delivers substantial improvements, such as better development tools and the ability to write to external data sources.