Automatically copy data from SP2010 external list to an SP2010 custom list

Question

I have an SP 2010 external list that is populated with customer names. The list is updated occasionally throughout the day. I would like to automatically copy the newly added names to another SP 2010 list when it is updated or at a set time (hourly).

Is there an easy way to do this? And if not, is there at least a way to do it?

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, External Lists do not support workflows. So workflow is not a solution here.

One of the way to do this would be to create a custom timer job to synchronize items & configure to run it periodically. See details about how to create & register custom job here.

But this approach has it's own drawbacks:

1. it is complex enough
2. you will need a farm scoped feature + receiver to register the job. The reason is that for security purposes you can't register a custom job from within the code running in Content Web application (so it will not work in site collection level feature receiver), only from code running in Central Admin app.