Installing Application Definitions in MashPoint: Amazon Web Service Sample

In this section, we will configure MashPoint to work with the Amazon Web Service sample from Microsoft. You can read about it in greater detail on MSDN.

You need the Application Definition for AmazonWebService.  It is included in the download package of MashPoint, in the MetadataFiles folder.

Before we can configure the Application Definition File (ADF), we must sign up to use the Amazon Web Services, which you do here. You will receive an e-mail with a link to a page where you will see your access key.  You will need this key to be able to use the Amazon Web Services.

Open up AmazonWebService.xml in your favorite XML editor.

Search and replace the following text [EnterYourSubscriptionIdHere] with your access key, making sure to replace it in all locations.

<DefaultValue Type="System.String" MethodInstanceName="ItemSpecificFinderInstance"> [EnterYourSubscriptionIdHere]  </DefaultValue>

Save the file.  Now it's time to upload it into MashPoint.

Open up your Bamboo Shared Service and select "Import application definition."

Browse to the ADF file that you just modified and select "Import."

After the application has been imported, you will see this page:

Here you see an overview of the application you just imported. You can see that the Access Account is "logged-on user" (this is PassThrough mode). This means that the identity of the currenly logged on user will be used to access the Amazon Web Service.

You also see a listing of the entities defined in the application. In this sample we have two entities: EditorialReview, and Item.  If you click on one of the entities, you will see additional information about that entity.  Let's look at the Item Entity.

Detail view of the Item Entity:

In this view you see all fields that are defined for the Item: ASIN and DetailPageURL.  You also see relationships between the Item and other entities (in this example, Item is related to EditorialReviews via the EditorialReviewsForItem association).

Now let's display the data using the Bamboo Data-Viewer Web Part. If you haven't already installed it, you will need to do so. Start by downloading our free trial version of the Web Part.

Once you have downloaded the Web Part, it's time to install it.  Extract the .zip archive and start setup.bat.

Click "Install."

The setup program will verify that you have enough permission to install and deploy SharePoint solutions, and that all required services are running. If any of the checks fail, make sure you are logged on as a user with enough permissions (a local administrator should have enough permissions).

The next screen shows you where the solution will be deployed. Uncheck "Central Administration," and click "Next."

The install will wait a maximum of 15 minutes for the deployment job to complete.

After this you should see the following screen:

We are now ready to add the Data-Viewer to a page and display data from Amazon.

Since our Bamboo Shared Service is associated with two Web Applications we can add the Web Part into either of them.

I will add it on the Administration site host itself. So I click on the "BambooSharedServices1 (Default)" link.

Create a new Web Part page.

Since I didn't automatically activate the feature during install, we need to activate the Web Part before we can add it to the page.

Navigate to your Site Collection Features and activate the Web Part feature.

Now you will be able to add the Web Part to the new page.

Now it's time to configure the Web Part.

Select Business Data Catalog as the data source. Then click the "Browse" button to pick your entity.

Select the "Item" Entity and click "OK."

Select the fields you want to display from "Available Columns."  The Data-Viewer Web Part can display relationships, so you want to click "Show Nested Data."  Pick the relationship you want to display (for Item, you only have one relationship: EditorialReviewsForItem).  Finally, select the fields you want to show for the related entity.

Let's enable some of the additional features in the Data-Viewer Web Part.

You have many more settings in the Data-Viewer that I won't describe here.  A list of available features is available in the Application notes which are included in the Data-Viewer Web Part .zip file which you downloaded earlier.

We have completed the configuration of the Web Part, so click "OK" and Exit Edit Mode.

You should see the Data-Viewer Web Part displaying data from Amazon.

To verify your data, copy the DetailPageURL into your browser to open the link from Amazon to compare.

(Troubleshooting assistance coming soon.)

In the next section, we will write a custom Data Provider for MashPoint.

/Jonas