How can I create a multi-valued refiner for a Business Data Catalog external content type?

Question

This question regards a SharePoint 2010 instance using vanilla search.

I'm currently using a Business Data Catalog to pull records from a database table with an end-goal of displaying the records in search results. Each record is a flat aggregate of the base entity and its related tables (Deals -> Deals Count, for example).

One field in the record is a concatenated list of strings. When displayed in the search results, we would like this field to behave as a multi-valued field, allowing us to refine search results by entries in this string list.

I've tried looking into how this is normally accomplished, but I can't seem to locate any examples whatsoever.

• Is there a known way to accomplish this?
• If not, are there any resources which could help clarify what the actual problem is, and how it could be resolved?

P.S.: I am by no means a SharePoint expert, and am fairly unfamiliar with many of its components, so if further clarification would help or I'm asking for something nonsensical, please inform me so I can try to provide a clearer question.

Answer 1

OOB SharePoint 2010 does not have multi-value refiners. I know of a codeplex project with multi-value refiners but haven't tested it, but you might want to give it a shot.

In short it splits the string, eg. red;yellow;blue, and look at it as seperate values. I can't see why this shouldn't work for BCS fields either.

Here is a description of how to configure the refinement panel for using the multi-value refiner

More info on the refinement panel scheme here