sharepoint content type data driven

Question

I'm creating a new content type for a sharepoint project (MOSS 2007). This content type (Letter Template) needs to contain meta-data that is driven from data outside of sharepoint like, template type (which we define in another db). How can I accomplish this in sp (aside from generating xml files)?

Answer 1

So your letter template content type has a number of fields. The data for these fields is stored in an external database? sounds like a job for the Business Data Catalog (MOSS feature, not WSS).

Another possibility is an Item Event Receiver that connects to the database and retrieves the data. This is definitely not the preferred way of handling this scenario, but may be quicker to implement.

hth,

jt

Answer 2

You can try import that content type into a list in SharePoint and use that list as the source. If the source at the database changes often, setup a job to pull the data into the list periodically.