Limitations with BDC, web services and nested arrays (complex types)

Question

We have several web services from our enterprise systems.  I am trying to wire up the BDC to one of them that front-ends our HR system.  It returns some complex information about a worker, for example:

 

Code Snippet

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
 <Worker xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://our.intranet.com/">
  <workertype>Contractor</workertype>
  <country>United States</country>
  <workerskill>
    <WorkerSkills>
      <skill_id>100</skill_id>
      <skill_descp>ASP.NET</skill_descp>
  </WorkerSkills>

  <WorkerSkills>
      <skill_id>101</skill_id>
      <skill_descp>BDC</skill_descp>
  </WorkerSkills>
  <formalname>Chase, Chevy</formalname>
  <birthdate>01/01/1955</birthdate>
  <hiredate>12/25/2004</hiredate>
 </Worker>

 

 

 

Can the BDC work with this kind of nested data?  I want to create a web part that queries this web service, and will likely only use the top level information (none of the nested nodes).

Answer 1

Hello  Dasani,

I'm wondering if you had any luck with this..

 

Answer 2

Nested types should work. Did you try BDC Metaman to generate the ADF files? Run BDC Metaman against the webserivce.

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Answer 3

Hi, after a few of months. Has anyone got it?

Answer 4

I haven't had any problems getting this to work.  I created a class with public get/set properties and it reads them off just fine.