Hi, I am a pretty novice developer in SharePoint Online with a small business. I am in charge of revamping our SharePoint site (currently it is mostly used as a file repository).
I have been trying a Bi-Directional connection from MySQL database to a SharePoint List. How is this executed? I have tried with SharePoint designer to create External Content Types and Data Sources however the connection always errors out. I have found software that will make the connection easier (and confirming it is possible) but it wasn’t worth the $$ at this point. I know it is possible, can someone please let me know?
Any advice on this subject will truly help me out!
Have you considered a 3rd party tool. There’s a couple in our ETL directory that might help out. In particular it looks like Simego’s Data Sync connects a list to MySQL. (Not sure if it’s 2 way though).
So just confirming – there is NO WAY (besides costly 3rd party software) to have a bi-directional connection from SharePoint Online to an ODBC mySQL connection?
Hi Beau,
The error I receive from SharePoint Designer 2013 is Server Error: An Error occurred while retrieving the list of Databases from: The server for the data source returned a non-specific error when trying to execute your query.
The connection string in other applications, can you shed any light on this?
Thank you!
You sound like you are on the right track using BCS and the external content type. Can you tell us what error you were receiving?
I believe SharePoint online can only access data from WCF Data Services, OData and SQL Server Azure Components. It will not support direct SQL connections. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Introduction-to-external-data-676e60e7-d99f-463f-a173-65e9d63538c0