We had implemented SharePoint 2007 for our intranet and used AD as the system of record to authenticate our global users. We currently have content, e.g. Departments itemized within a SharePoint list, employees by department w/in a PDF, global/regional employee phone list in Excel, and org chart in PDF from Org Plus output for our US users. We have a business request to change the system of record from AD to Oracle HR for US users so that HR does not have to redundantly update Oracle HR then the SharePoint content items. Can you tell me what are the integration trade-offs, challenges, or benefits that an Oracle HR to SharePoint 2007 would entail?

Thank you Paul for the quick reply. We are running MOSS. I was not involved in the original configuration and a novice with SHarePoint; can you tell me how BDC works to retrieve data from Oracle HR, i.e. do I use the BDC to interface with Oracle HR for certain content and stay with AD for user authentication? Is BDC bi-directional?

Thank you again Paul. We do have MOSS enterprise. It's good to know that we can supplement AD data with the user profile import. Can you tell me whether or not data retrieved using BDC or Lightening Tools provide any formatting options rendered within SP 2007? That is, the business request is to pull data from Oracle HR to replace the manual process of updating Excel workbooks and Org Plus org charts stored within a document library, but they still want to retain the printer-friendly format of the original documents.