Even though BCS is great and can do wonders when you want
SharePoint 2010 to interact with your external systems or other LOB
applications, it has its own limitations.
Understanding these limitations will help you build good BCS solutions.
Below are some/all of the BCS/External Lists limitations:
Workflows cannot be associated with external lists
However, you can use the external data columns and
manipulate the external lists in a workflow.
LINQ to SharePoint spmetal.exe does not
support external lists
Cannot configure alerts for external lists
Cannot export external list items to Excel (Export to Excel
feature)
Item-Level permissions is not available for external lists
Versioning cannot be configured on external lists
Item History is not available on external lists
Datasheet view cannot be used in external lists
XSLT is supported though
You cannot create a site column of type ‘External Data
Column’
External data columns can be created only as list
based columns and cannot be consumed in site level content
types
No Write support for BLOB
You cannot write back to BLOB fields using BCS unless you
write your own method
You can access BLOB columns by defining a StreamAccessor method
and presenting the external data via the BCS Data List web part by checking
the Display stream fields property
Ratings feature is not supported for external lists
Metadata based navigation is not supported for External
Lists
Some of the limitations are quite obvious as the data does
not reside in SharePoint and it is not SharePoint’s responsibility on how the
data behaves. SharePoint is here to just present the external data. That said,
I do think some are not limitations, but Microsoft just didn’t have time to
implement, like:
RSS feed support
External data site columns
Export to Excel
Can’t connect data to workflows
There is no way for you to run a workflow on records contained in external lists. In SharePoint 2010 you can only attach workflows to documents, list items and content types – not external lists. You could map external list records to SharePoint lists and connect a workflow to the internal list, but think about what’s needed to sync the two lists. Lack of record-level permissions This means you can’t control who has access to specific records in the external list – like marketing staff being able to view but not change entries belonging to sales. No REST access You cannot get external data that sits somewhere out on the web, like SaleForce.com. No attachment support SharePoint BCS 2010 does not allow for attachments, so you can’t link a record to a relevant document. Well, you might be able to store the attachment in the external database, but read on… No BLOB write support You can’t write to a BLOB field through BCS, unless you come up with your own write method. Can’t export data to Excel …or other popular file formats, but if the data has numbers in it users are going to be asking you how to get it into Excel (“cut and paste” wasn’t well received when I tried suggesting it). No datasheet view and inline editing This means you cannot edit items directly when viewing them as a grid. You need to open the individual item view to edit the contents. Lack of field and record level validation You can’t control what a user enters into the field without resorting to the intricacies of SharePoint Designer or InfoPath. Limited lookup functionality When you retrieve a value of “2732” in the Industry Code field of your CRM contact, that’s all you’re going to see since you can’t link the field to the Industry Codes table. The ID column is the one thing that you can look up on external lists; otherwise you’ll have to start coding to be able to get “Book Printing” instead of a cryptic number. Lack of alerts You can’t configure alerts on external lists through BCS. Lack of RSS feeds When using BCS in SharePoint 2010, RSS feeds are not accessible. Lack of ratings One can’t rate items that are contained in an external list. No versioning You can’t keep a version history of changes to external lists, but maybe you couldn’t in the original system ether… Courtesy:http://pravahaminfo.blogspot.in/2012/01/business-connectivity-services.htmlhttp://go.limeleap.com/community/bid/239118/SharePoint-BCS-2010-Limitations-and-Challenges
The long-awaited version of Office 2013 suite became available to the general public in March and along with this update, many people were particularly interested in the new features of one of its highly anticipated accompanying online components – namely SharePoint 2013.
There were a number of exciting updates and we wanted to help you get started exploring all the key changes and concepts available in SharePoint 2013.
Microsoft SharePoint 2013 has improved upon its predecessor’s features and functionality and is able to offer enhanced support for BI, Search, Mobile and Public Website Support.Mobile and social sharing are leading the way and Microsoft has injected ample doses of both in SharePoint 2013. In addition to the social networking features, the new SharePoint will provide storage and synchronization via SkyDrive Pro, which will replace the old SharePoint Workspaces feature.
Enhanced Business Intelligence
SharePoint Server 2013’s business intelligence tools let your company delve deeper into business insights and analytics. SharePoint and Excel now also offer tighter integration.
The PowerPivot program allows you to work with billions of rows and columns directly in memory because it is more powerful in SharePoint 2013. Power View provides intuitive ad-hoc reporting. With PerformancePoint Services, Dashboard Designer, and with Visio Services, you can create sophisticated dashboards capable of integrating reports and metrics from multiple data sources that are customizable for your audience. (see here for an overview of the Business Intelligence capabilities of SharePoint 2013.)
More Mobile Device Support
Many users expect to be able to use their desktop applications on any device, no matter how big or small the screen. Microsofthasaddressed this by offering the user a betterSharePoint experience for mobile devices than in previous versions. Users now can pick from three different mobile browsing options (namely Contemporary view, Classic view, Full screen UI) and SharePoint sites can now be better accessed with tablets and mobile devices.
Jonathan Hassel, IT journalist for CIO.com, says that “There is now an HTML5 coded view known as the “contemporary” view that is optimized for speedy access across iPhones, iPads, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices.”
Geolocation and push notification functionality has also been added. Push notifications allows SharePoint 2013 to reach out and push a message to your device based on a variety of factors. “Location awareness has been built in as well, if you plan to develop location-aware applications on top of the SharePoint platform,” says Hassel.
Better Social Sharing in SharePoint
New social features include the organisation’s newsfeed activity, the introduction of Community Sites, and other changes intended to better foster sharing and collaboration within an organisation.
Community Sites gives the user a forum experience and the ability to classify discussions around subject areas, and to connect users who have knowledge or seek knowledge about subject areas. SharePoint TechCenter says that My Sites now offers “an improved, more intuitive workflow for users to develop their personal profiles, store content, and keep up-to-date with activities of interest through the use of the new microblog and feeds experience.”
Search
The Enterprise search in SharePoint Server 2013 offers query processing and the ability to target search results so the user can easily find what they are looking for.
The improvement of search in SharePoint 2013, was intended for both IT and end users. A new feature allows one to customise the appearance of search results based upon content type, rather than simply delivering a uniform list as in the past.
eDiscovery
The eDiscovery function in SharePoint 2013 provides a new set of tools for managing the e-discovery process and offers better ways to help protect your business. SharePoint’s new eDiscovery Center allows for searches across SharePoint, Exchange and Lync environments, the ability to preserve and export discovered content, to preserve content in-place from Exchange mailboxes and SharePoint sites while allowing users to continue working with content, and support for search and export from file shares. Find out more about eDiscovery in SharePoint.
Improved branding
SharePoint 2013 offers improved processes for creating a public-facing or internal intranet site with pixel-perfect branding. This complicated process of branding a SharePoint site is now easier and if you are a professional web designer who is proficient in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can design a SharePoint site with minimum effort. This will reduce your internal support expense, as the new features in the publishing site minimize the amount of SharePoint knowledge that is required to successfully design and brand a SharePoint site.
Best New features of SharePoint 2013
This video shows four SharePoint experts offering some top tips and describing the new features in SharePoint 2013 that excite them the most.
More Mobile Device Support
Better Social Sharing in SharePoint
Search