Creating Orders in Microsoft Dynamics NAV via web services or an API

Question

I am tasked with creating an API that would allow 3rd party customers the ability to send orders into our Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1.

I want to be able to create a SalesOrder in Dynamics NAV not with the client but via an API so i can allow a seperate process to enter in orders automatically.

Any help is appreciated in leading me in the right direction.

Answer 1

Well, it depends on how complicated you want to make it. Do you need confirmation of the Sales Order creation in "real time"? If so, you'll need to use a Web Service and ensure that there is a network path from wherever customers will create orders (public internet, extranet) to your NAV Web Service - likely using a VPN tunnel, etc. es th Alternatively, if you can live with a batch type process then you can have your customers create SOs via a web-based form, etc. and then import these orders into NAV on a regular basis using Dataports or XMLPorts.

For example, you may have a form online that your customer can create an Order on that places the Order in a staging table in SQL or even an XML or CSV file. Then you can run a process on a regular basis that imports these Orders into NAV and creates the appropriate SalesOrders.

Presumably, you also need a way to expose your Item database to the Ordering interface so customers can select which Items to order (and therefore create SalesLines from).

Which type of scenario are you interested in?

Answer 2

Web Services is the way to go; we have several applications that have a similar requirement. I'd recommend building an interface (ASP, to utilise the web service from NAV) and have it talk to NAV that way.

Editing the database directly is not recommended as it will cause locking and may result in deadlocks if not careful. Also NAV can be quite sensitive when it comes to the database, so best not write to it directly if possible :)

I'd recommend creating a codeunit that handles the sales order, in which you can create your functions, 'CreateOrder' and then expose that via Web Services. Even if you're not planning to use a web-based interface, NAV uses the SOAP protocol -- many libraries exist to enable you to connect and interface to Web Services from other languages, like Java.= for instance.