There hasn’t been much documentation released on how to actually use Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 service-based architecture. In an effort to share information, I’ve outlined my own interactions with GP’s service-based architecture and how I got it to work.
What’s included in this overview:
Based on the responses I got from Microsoft while running a case on this, it looks like majority of users deployed SBA in single tenant mode, in which case your tenant configuration is stored in the TenantConfiguration.xml in the GPService folder. However, if you’re using multi-tenant, then it’s stored in the database.
To configure your tenant:
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Although the web service connects to the database itself as the same user every time (e.g. the one you specify in the tenant configuration), access to the procedures by the calling user is managed through security within Dynamics GP itself.
In order to access the web services at all, a user needs to be set up and the Directory Account set to the Windows Account of the identity that will be making the requests. Theoretically, this should all work with the new organizational accounts (e.g. Office 365 or Windows Azure AD) also, but I have not had the time yet to figure out how to pass through those credentials (should be by OAuth, I think).
If you give the user a POWERUSER role, they will be able to use all of the web service procedures. If you want to give more granular control, then you can use Security Tasks (Tools > Setup > System > Security Tasks) and Security Roles (Tools > Setup > System > Security Roles) to give explicit access.
When creating a security task, there’s a new Type (Service Enabled Procedures) that can be used to give access at the procedure level.
From here, things are pretty straightforward. It’s just basic REST with a couple of pointers. By convention, REST treats collections of things like folders on a web server, at least when it comes to the URL. See below for some examples working with a demo item (in JSON format) to get a hang of how the calls are made.
Method: POST (note: not PUT)
URL: https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(Fabrikam,%20Inc.)/Inventory/Items(note: the item number isn’t included in the URL)
Headers:
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
Body:
{
“Payload”:{
“ItemNumber”:”DEMO”,
“ItemShortName”:”Demo Item”,
“ItemDescription”:”Demo Item created with SBA”,
“UOfMSchedule”:”EACH”
}
}
A couple of things to note here. First, the information you’re sending will always be in a sub-object calledPayload. Second, the procedures do vary somewhat from the functionality we’re used to in the older web services or eConnect. From what I can tell (in this case, at least) defaulting values from an inventory class aren’t really supported.
Method: GET
URL: https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(Fabrikam,%20Inc.)/Inventory/Items
This will return the items in XML format. To return them in JSON format, just append .json to the end of the URL: https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(Fabrikam,%20Inc.)/Inventory/Items.json
Method: GET
URL:https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(Fabrikam,%20Inc.)/Inventory/Items(ItemNumber)
Method: PATCH
URL:https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(Fabrikam,%20Inc.)/Inventory/Items(ItemNumber)
Headers:
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
Body:
{
“Payload”:{
“ItemNumber”:”DEMO”,
“ItemShortName”:”Demo Item”,
“ItemDescription”:”Demo Item updated with SBA”,
“UOfMSchedule”:”EACH”
}
}
*Note* Although this functionality is specific by procedure (it just depends on how that given procedure was coded), in the case of items, although the procedure supports merging a partial item object (in other words, it will update ItemDescription if you include it in your Payload object but will not change it if that property is simply missing), it does required field validation only against the supplied object. Therefore, you have to pass all required fields even if the only one you want to update is ItemDescription.
Method: DELETE
URL:https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(Fabrikam,%20Inc.)/Inventory/Items(ItemNumber)
Finally, a lot more detail for the methods that are available can be found at https://mymachine:myport/GPService/Tenants(Test)/Companies(CompanyName)/Help. This has all of the methods by product and some information about the call and response.
The following locations have diagnostic information.
This area actually has been fairly well documented on the now-defunct Developing for Dynamics GP blog.
