Integrating the SharePoint Server Object Model and the Entity Data Model (part 2) - Create a Meeting Scheduler Visual Web Part

Open the Visual Studio solution you created in the previous exercise, right-click the solution, and select Add | New Project.

Select the SharePoint installed templates, and then select Empty SharePoint Project.

Provide a name for the project (for example, SchedulingWebPart), and click OK.

When prompted, select Deploy As Farm Solution, and click Finish.

Right-click the project, and select Add | New Item.

Select SharePoint, and then select Visual Web Part. Provide a name for the Web Part (such as ScheduleWebPart), and click Add.

When the Web Part item has been added, walk through the same process you did in the first exercise in this article to add the SQL Azure database by using the ADO.NET EDM. You can use the same name to configure the model (that is, CustomerEntities).

After adding the EDM, create a UI that looks similar to the following image. To do this, right-click the Visual Web Part ASCX file (that is, ScheduleWebPartUserControl.ascx), and select View Designer.

Note that you’ll add the controls in the following table to your Visual Web Part UI.

The code for the Visual Web Part UI is shown in the following code snippet. Note that the code has been trimmed to remove the default code that was created when you first created the Visual Web Part:

...
<style type="text/css">
    .style1
    {
        color: #000066;
        font-family: Calibri;
    }
</style>

<p class="style1">
    <strong>Store Meeting Scheduler</strong></p>
<table>
<tr>
<td><asp:Label ID="lblCompanies" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
        Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text="Stores: " Font-Bold="True"></
asp:Label></td>
<td>
    <asp:DropDownList ID="drpdwnlstStores" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
        Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Height="24px" Width="307px">
    </asp:DropDownList>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><asp:Label ID="lblDate" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri" Font-Size="Small"
        ForeColor="#000066" Text="Date:" Font-Bold="True"></asp:Label></td>
<td><asp:Calendar ID="clndrControl" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
        Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Height="100px" Width="217px"></
asp:Calendar></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><asp:Label ID="lblMeetingTime" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
    Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text="Time:" Font-Bold="True"></asp:Label>
</td>
<td>

    <asp:DropDownList ID="drpdwnMeetingTime" runat="server" Height="24" Width="302px"
        Font-Names="Calibri" Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066">
        <asp:ListItem>Breakfast Meeting</asp:ListItem>
        <asp:ListItem>Lunch Meeting</asp:ListItem>
        <asp:ListItem>Dinner Meeting</asp:ListItem>
    </asp:DropDownList>

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><asp:Label ID="lblLocation" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
    Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text="Location:" Font-Bold="True">
</asp:Label></td>
<td>
    <asp:DropDownList ID="drpdwnStoreLocation" runat="server" Height="24"
Width="302px"
        Font-Names="Calibri" Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066">
        <asp:ListItem>Store Location</asp:ListItem>
        <asp:ListItem>Corporate</asp:ListItem>
    </asp:DropDownList>
    </td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><asp:CheckBox ID="chkbxAddAnnouncement" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
        Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text="Add an Announcement"
        Font-Bold="True" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><asp:Button ID="btnSubmit" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
    Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text="Schedule"
        onclick="btnSubmit_Click" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><asp:Label ID="lblStatus" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
    Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text="Status:" Font-Bold="True">
</asp:Label></td>
<td><asp:Label ID="lblMessageToUser" runat="server" Font-Names="Calibri"
    Font-Size="Small" ForeColor="#000066" Text=" " Font-Bold="True"></asp:Label></td>
</tr>
</table>

					  

Right-click the ASCX file, and select View Code. In the code-behind, add the following bold code:

using System;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Data;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

namespace SchedulingWebPart.ScheduleWebPart
{
    public partial class ScheduleWebPartUserControl : UserControl
    {
        CustomersEntities dc = new CustomersEntities();

        string queryString = "SELECT * from Customers.dbo.StoreInformation;";
        DataSet azureDataset = new DataSet();

        string mySPSite = "http://blueyonderdemo";

        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            populateDropDownBox();
        }

        private void populateDropDownBox()
        {
            string storeName = "";

            string connectionString = "Server=tcp:<your server name>.database.windows.
net;Database=" +
             "Customers;User ID=<your user ID>;Password=<your password>;
Trusted_Connection=False;" +
             "Encrypt=True;";

            using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
            {
                SqlDataAdapter adaptor = new SqlDataAdapter();
                adaptor.SelectCommand = new SqlCommand(queryString, connection);
                adaptor.Fill(azureDataset);

                foreach (DataRow custRecord in azureDataset.Tables[0].Rows)
                {
                    storeName = custRecord[2].ToString();
                    drpdwnlstStores.Items.Add(storeName);
                }
            }
        }

        protected void btnSubmit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string storeNameFromList = drpdwnlstStores.SelectedItem.ToString();
            string meetingLocation = drpdwnStoreLocation.SelectedItem.ToString();
            string meetingDate = clndrControl.SelectedDate.ToShortDateString();
            string meetingTime = drpdwnMeetingTime.SelectedItem.ToString();
            double meetingTimeHours = 0;

            if (meetingTime == "Breakfast Meeting")
            {
                meetingTimeHours = 8;
            }
            else if (meetingTime == "Lunch Meeting")
            {
                meetingTimeHours = 12;
            }
            else if (meetingTime == "Dinner Meeting")
            {
                meetingTimeHours = 17;
            }

            if (chkbxAddAnnouncement.Checked == true)
            {
                createAnEvent(storeNameFromList, meetingLocation, meetingDate,
meetingTimeHours);
                createAnAnnouncement(storeNameFromList, meetingLocation, meetingDate);
                lblMessageToUser.Text = "A new event and an announcement have been " +
                   "created for this meeting.";
            }
            else
            {
                createAnEvent(storeNameFromList, meetingLocation, meetingDate,
meetingTimeHours);
                lblMessageToUser.Text = "A new event has been created for this
meeting.";
            }
        }

        private void createAnAnnouncement(string storeNameFromList,
string meetingLocation,
           string meetingDate)
        {
            string finalStoreLocation = "";

            var query = from store in dc.StoreInformations
                        where store.StoreName== storeNameFromList
                        select store;

            foreach (var item in query)
            {
                finalStoreLocation = item.StoreAddress;
            }

            using (SPSite site = new SPSite(mySPSite))
            {
                using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
                {
                    web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

                    SPList list = web.Lists["Announcements"];
                    SPListItem item = list.Items.Add();
                    item["Title"] = storeNameFromList + " Meeting";
                    item["Body"] = storeNameFromList + " Meeting";
                    item["Store Address"] = meetingLocation + ": " +
finalStoreLocation;
                    item["Meeting Date"] = meetingDate;
                    item.Update();

                    web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
                }
            }
        }

        private void createAnEvent(string storeNameFromList, string meetingLocation,
           string meetingDate, double meetingTimeHours)
        {
            string finalStoreLocation = "";

            DateTime startOfMeeting = DateTime.Parse(meetingDate).
AddHours(meetingTimeHours);
            DateTime endOfMeeting = startOfMeeting.AddHours(2);

            var query = from store in dc.StoreInformations
                        where store.StoreName == storeNameFromList
                        select store;

            foreach (var item in query)
            {
                finalStoreLocation = item.StoreAddress;
            }

            using (SPSite site = new SPSite(mySPSite))
            {
                using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
                {
                    web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

                    SPList list = web.Lists["Calendar"];
                    SPListItem item = list.Items.Add();
                    item["Title"] = storeNameFromList + " Meeting";
                    item["Location"] = finalStoreLocation;
                    item["Description"] = storeNameFromList + " Meeting";
                    item["Start Time"] = startOfMeeting;
                    item["End Time"] = endOfMeeting;
                    item.Update();

                    web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
                }
            }

        }
    }
}

					  

You’ll recognize some of the code in this example because you created similar code in the first exercise to query the ADO.NET EDM and insert records into SharePoint. For example, you’ll recognize the code that issues a SQL command to query the SQL Azure database, the code that sets the ADO.NET EDM data context and queries for a specific record, and the code that inserts the record (based on the retrieved information from SQL Azure) into SharePoint. (Note that in this example, though, you hard-coded the SQL connection string [including credentials]; this is something you would never do in practice. You would need to include these separately, such as string variables in the project’s resources.) Two differences to note in this code, though, are as follows:

• The different data types across the SharePoint lists (for example, DateTime and string) and how you need to convert data that you’re retrieving from the Visual Web Part controls.

• How you’re creating simple conditionals with the Morning, Lunch, or Dinner options in the meeting time drop-down list (drpdwnMeetingTime). Having three conditionals here made it more optimal when using the AddHours method in the example.

Now that you’ve created the Visual Web Part, you need to configure SharePoint for the EDM you just added. To do this, double-click the app.config file in your Visual Studio project to open it. Copy the connectionStrings setting from the app.config file, and then navigate to the SharePoint web.config file (that is, C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\web.config). Paste the connectionStrings configuration at the end of the web.config file as in the following code listing:

<configuration>
...
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="CustomersEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/AzureStores.
csdl|res://*/AzureStores.ssdl|res://*/AzureStores.msl;provider=System.Data.
SqlClient;provider connection string=&quot; Data Source=<server name>.database.
windows.net; Initial Catalog=Customers;
 Persist Security Info=True; User ID=<user ID>; Password=<password>; MultipleActiveRes
ultSets=False&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
  </connectionStrings>
</configuration>

					  

Return to the Visual Studio project. Right-click the SharePoint project, and select Deploy. (Be sure that you’ve updated the Site URL property to point to your local SharePoint site.)

After the project has successfully deployed, navigate to your SharePoint site. Click Site Actions | Edit Page, select the Insert tab, and click Web Part.

Navigate to where you deployed your Visual Web Part (that is, to the SP And Azure category), select the Web Part, and click Add. Save the page to propagate your changes to the server.

After you’ve added the Web Part to SharePoint, select a store by using the autopopulated drop-down list. Then select a date and a time of day for the meeting. Select Store Location (because we didn’t add any code to handle the Corp Location), and select the Add An Announcement check box. Click Submit when done.