Sharepoint hosted CRUD Application? (Entity Framework?)

Question

I am going to create a basic "CRUD" application that will "live" inside Sharepoint 2010. The data will be hosted on a SQL 2008 R2 Server.

Basically, there will be a few "Add" forms, some Queries and some Reporting (SSRS).

Honestly, the application doesn't really even need Sharepoint, but we are trying to get as many of these applications hosted inside Sharepoint as possible. (The application is currently a Microsoft Access application.)

I have experience creating these types of applications (ASP .Net) and have recently been using the Entity Framework. Generally, I design my Data Layer in a seperate Visual Studio Project (using EF) and then extendthe partial classes it creates and/or sometimes create another POCO layer to access the data (depending on how much "business logic" there is).

Anyway, the question I have is:

If I create a (Visual Studio) Solution (I know I have to target .Net 3.5, since because SP doesn't support 4.0 yet), can I use my usual "layered" design and create a seperate project (assembly) that conaints all of my Data Access (Entity Framework) and then have a seperate Project that contains all of the Visual Web Parts (that we design the Data Entry Forms in)? Will this work? Will I be able to call the exposed methods from the (EF) DAL from within the Visual Web Parts (after I deploy my solution to the SP Server)? Will I have to do anything "special" or will both projects get packaged up into a (what is it) "wsp" file and get deployed to SP? (Or, will I have to manually get my DAL Assembly added to the GAC, etc.)

Any examples or tutorials would be a big help to me too.

Also, if you think I am going about this all wrong, I am also interested in knowing how you would create a similar appliation. Is there a better way to do this? (I know I could create a BDC Model and access our SQL data via a Sharepoint List using the External Content Type. Although, for some reason it just seems like that isn't the "right path" for this particular application... I can't put my finger on it, but I am leaning toward just creating a "traditional" ASP .Net app that just uses SharePoint as its "hosting web server".)

Thanks! Shayne

Answer 1

If you have the full version of sharepoint you can use Access Services, which will convert your Access application to a web app, just run the wizard

see this video for details: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Access/Microsoft-Access-2010-Demo

Answer 2

Can you do it: yes. Should you do it: probably not.

You hit it on the head. You are creating and ASP.NET application, not a SharePoint application.

Anyway, assuming you are going to have to proceed in this manner, here's my advice.

Build the presentation layer (web parts, application pages) using the SharePoint project template and SharePoint project items. This project can reference the assemblies that implement the remaining layers of your application. Visual Studio will then prepare a Solution Package (WSP) that can be used in testing and deployed to production servers.

You should do everything you can to make your application "fit" into SharePoint. It should use the same UI metaphors, respect branding, and so on. Nothing is more jarring to a user then to have pages and web parts that look and behave total different to SharePoint in the middle of a SharePoint site.