Admins may be unable to access and manage BCS and BDC features in SharePoint Online

Title: Admins may be unable to access and manage BCS and BDC features in SharePoint Online

User impact: Admins may have been unable to access and manage BCS and BDC features in SharePoint Online.

More info: Global and SharePoint Online admins attempting to access the “Manage BDC Models and External Content Types” page in the SharePoint Online admin center may have encountered errors and may have been unable to manage Business Data Connectivity (BDC) or Business Connectivity Services (BCS) features.

For admins continuing to encounter this issue, impact can be resolved by utilizing the Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell module, version 16.0.24120.12000 or above. The version can be verified by “Get-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell | Select-Object Version”.

Affected admins should run the following commands to resolve any residual impact:

Connect-SPOService -Url https://-admin.sharepoint.com
Set-SPOTenant -BusinessConnectivityServiceDisabled $false

More information on the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) feature and its upcoming deprecation can be accessed here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/manage-business-connectivity-service-applications

Final status: We’ve determined that a recent service operation intended to prepare the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) feature for its upcoming deprecation inadvertently resulted in impact to some admins who were still utilizing these features. We’ve applied changes to restore the BCS service functionality in SharePoint Online for admins who reached out to report the issue and confirmed that our configuration changes are successful in remediating the impact. Admins who are continuing to encounter this issue should follow the steps outlined in the “More info” section of this communication to resolve any residual impact.

Scope of impact: Your organization was affected by this event, and all admins attempting to manage Business Data Connectivity (BDC) features in SharePoint Online were impacted.

Start time: Friday, March 15, 2024, at 2:18 PM UTC

End time: Saturday, March 16, 2024, at 12:45 AM UTC

Root cause: A recent service operation intended to prepare the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) feature for its upcoming deprecation inadvertently resulted in impact to some admins who were still utilizing these features.

Next steps:
– We’re reviewing the recent service operation to identify ways to better prevent similar impact in the future.

This is the final update for the event.