The SharePoint Business Data List Connector is used to simply connect a SharePoint list with external LOB data, e.g. from databases, CRM or ERP systems.
Columns of type "Person or Group" are often used in SharePoint lists to reference to an existing user or group, e.g.
- to render a user name with presence information,
- to filter the list content for this user or group - for example for ownership - or
- to use the people picker to select users or groups.
Generally you can pull data into columns of this type using the SharePoint Business Data List Connector (BDLC).
Fig.: Sample of a SharePoint BDLC list with person / group column type (named bdlcPerson)
You cannot automatically create columns of this type using the BDLC. The BDLC will create multiline text fields automatically in this case. It's a known limitation of SharePoint, that you cannot modify any existing column type after creation to the "Person or Group" type field.
So you have to create the "Person or Group" type column manually after creating the SharePoint list structure automatically by the BDLC. To map this column to external data in your SQL select statement please use the naming conventions given with BDLC, e.g. if you have a field "User" in your SQL result set, create a column "bdlcUser" to map it automatically. Please note the prefix "bdlc" in any case. Please note, that "bdlcUser" is the (internal) column name in this sample. You can rename this column after creation to any column title you want.
To display an field named "User" in your SQL result set, you can use the "Select XYZ as User from MyTableOrView" SQL select clause.
The most interesting question is about the content of your "User" field in the SQL result set to pull. The field should contain the IDs of the User Information List items of the current site collection (an integer value). By default the IDs are not shown in any view of this list, but you can add it manually to the view as usual with SharePoint lists.
Fig.: SharePoint User Information List with IDs. These IDs has to be pulled from external datasources to an "Person / Group" type column, to reference an existing user or group within the current site collection.
If you pull these IDs from your external data table to your SharePoint "Person or Group" column it will be rendered as link to the certain user or group, e.g. with presence information.