SpecificFinder – This BDC method is used to return specific row of data for your Business Data Catalog entity.

This means you must pass the necessary parameters to uniquely identify one row. If your specific finder is configured incorrectly and it returns multiple rows, then you will get errors in situations where  the specific finder is being used, such as MOSS search crawling and the Business Data Column.

When MOSS search crawling occurs, it gets the list of identifier values for a BDC entity by calling it’s IDEnumerator method. Then it calls the specific finder method and passes in the appropriate identifier value and indexes the information returned by each row of data. This means if you want a column from your database or web service to be searchable by your end users make sure it is being returned in your SpecificFinder method.

The other good place to use BDC entity’s SpecificFinder method is the Business Data Column. When you create a new Business Data Column for a sharepoint list, you can set which columns to add to the sharepoint list’s default view. The columns listed here are the ones defined in your SpecificFinder method.

If you generate your Application Definition Files with BDC Meta Man, you do not generally have to worry about the specificfinder method as it will be automatically generated for you - as long as your database table or view has a primary key. If it doesn't - or you are using web services, the most you will have to do is pick the identifier columns from the ones available to you. To modify your Business Data Catalog SpecificFinder method you just need to edit the entity on design surface, navigate to Method tab, choose SpecificFinder and set the columns you want to be returned by the SpecificFinder method of Business Data Catalog entity.