Microsoft ® Office 2007 Business Intelligence

5.3. SharePoint 2007 Data Connections Library

The next section will run through the basic configuration of Office Data Connection files (which have a file extension of .ODC) in a SharePoint 2007 Data Connection Library (DCL) area of SharePoint 2007. While it may seem we jump quickly into acronyms, it helps to know the Microsoft terminology when you're reading about these technologies and find references to ODCs and DCLs.

Excel uses ODCs to connect to external data; and an ODC connection is created in Excel, as you've seen in other chapters in this book. The ODC connection is saved as a stand-alone file that contains the configuration information (including ID and password for the data)—which is a good thing in a SharePoint environment, since ...