How to: Add an Entity to a Model

Article
02/04/2013

To create an entity, drag an entity from the Visual Studio Toolbox onto the Business Data Connectivity (BDC) designer.

To add an entity to the model

Create a BDC project, or open an existing BDC project. For more information, see Creating a Business Data Connectivity Model.
In the Toolbox, from the BusinessDataCatalog group, drag an Entity to the designer.

The new entity appears on the designer. Visual Studio adds an <Entity> element to the XML of the BDC model file in your project. For more information about the attributes of an Entity element, see Entity.
On the designer, right-click the entity, click Add, and then click Identifier.

A new identifier appears on the entity.

Note

You can change the name of the entity and the identifier in the Properties window.

Define the fields of the entity in a class. You can either add a new class to the project or use an existing class created by using other tools such as the Object Relational Designer (O/R Designer). The following example shows an entity class named Contact.

Partial Public Class Contact

    Private _ContactID As Integer
    Public Property ContactID() As Integer
        Get
            Return _ContactID
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            _ContactID = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _FirstName As String
    Public Property FirstName() As String
        Get
            Return _FirstName
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _FirstName = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _LastName As String
    Public Property LastName() As String
        Get
            Return _LastName
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _LastName = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _EmailAddress As String
    Public Property EmailAddress() As String
        Get
            Return _EmailAddress
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _EmailAddress = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _Phone As String
    Public Property Phone() As String
        Get
            Return _Phone
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _Phone = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _EmailPromotion As Integer
    Public Property EmailPromotion() As Integer
        Get
            Return _EmailPromotion
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            _EmailPromotion = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _NameStyle As Boolean
    Public Property NameStyle() As Boolean
        Get
            Return _NameStyle
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Boolean)
            _NameStyle = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _PasswordHash As String
    Public Property PasswordHash() As String
        Get
            Return _PasswordHash
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _PasswordHash = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private _PasswordSalt As String
    Public Property PasswordSalt() As String
        Get
            Return _PasswordSalt
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _PasswordSalt = value
        End Set
    End Property

End Class

    public partial class Contact
    {
        public int ContactID { get; set; }
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
        public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
        public string Phone { get; set; }
        public int EmailPromotion { get; set; }
        public bool NameStyle { get; set; }
        public string PasswordHash { get; set; }
        public string PasswordSalt { get; set; }

    }

How to: Add an Entity to a Model

To add an entity to the model

See Also

Tasks

Additional resources