Retrieving a customer is quite simple. You would perform a GET from Catalina’s API (REST) using the following endpoint: /api/financial/accountsReceivable/customer/{CustID}
Example, if you wanted to retrieve customer C300, you would use this endpoint: /api/financial/accountsReceivable/customer/C300
To do this retrieve in Postman, it would look similar to this:
Saving a New Customer
If you want to save a new customer, you would perform a POST to the following endpoint: /api/financial/accountsReceivable/customer (NOTE: you would NOT post a custID in the URL of the endpoint)
Below is a minimum curl POST that will create a customer. NOTE: if you do not pass a CustID in the request body, SL will automatically select a CustID for you. Also NOTE that if you try to do a POST and pass a CustID in the request body that already exists, the system will give you an error stating that you cant create a new customer with an existing CustID.
If the POST is successful, the API will pass back the newly saved customer. In the response body, you will see the field myCustomer.CustId. That will be the CustID saved (if you passed a valid CustID or if the system automatically set the CustID if you didn’t pass one in the request body)
It would like like this in Postman:
The customer can now be viewed in the SL Customer Maintenance (08.260.00) Screen.
Updating a Customer
If you want to change a customer, you would make a PATCH call to the following endpoint: /api/financial/accountsReceivable/customer/{CustID}
NOTE: you would replace {CustID}, in the URL, with the Customer ID you want to update. So, if you want to update customer 00128, the endpoint would look like this: /api/financial/accountsReceivable/customer/00128
Regarding the request body, you would only pass the fields you want changed. If you want to change the customer’s name, but you don’t want to change anything else, then only pass the Name field with the value you want to change. So, if I wanted to change customer 00128 to have the customer name of “Barny Rubble” instead of “Fred Flintstone,” I would do a call something like this:
For developers, our SOAP version has the definition of this in the WSDL here (NOTE: we have it separated by function/module depending on what you need to do):
Many are starting to use dotnet core as a development environment for many reasons. It is compact, you can easily deploy to Docker containers, you can run cross platform, and many other reasons.
We get a lot of questions on how to use our API, for Dynamics SL, in a dotnet core environment.
If you want to be able to do something with our REST API or SOAP Web services, you may need to have a place to start. If you check out our github dotNETCore repository, you can see examples of both. You can clone the repository using the git client:
This is because Catalina’s API has security where you need to create a hash and pass that hash of the name of the stored procedure (using the same APIKey setup in ctDynamicsSL) so that when the API retrieves your request for the SQL call, it is using the same shared key for the hash encryption.
If you don’t want to do this, you can look at your DSLConfigFile.xml file. Look in the XML block denoted by the SiteID you are using in your header and make sure that this line is there (with the value = TRUE — All Caps). This will disable that checksum check.
It is easy to retrieve most any data from SL using Catalina’s API for Quick Query. Below is an example of how you can use SOAP and .NET to do this. This example shows yow you can retrieve subaccounts
First, you can also call the QuickQuery API via Postman (using the RESTful API) via below (NOTE: this should bring back all sub accounts since we arent filtering for anything.
Below is .NET code using SOAP. I had registered the SOAP web service quickQuery.ASMX and named it ctAPI.QuickQuery. This code shows you how you can retrieve subaccounts in 2 different ways
The first one just brings back all sub accounts
The second call brings back just sub accounts that contain the word “admin” in the Description
public void RunIt()
{
// call the web service, requesting the “QQ_SubAccount” quick query to be run. We will pass an empty filter array so that it will get everything
var returnWithoutFiltering = QuickQueryService.getScreen("QQ_SubAccount", new ctAPI.QuickQuery.queryFilter[0]);
{
// I like to convert to a JArray so that I can do other things with it. but lets loop through each row
Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JArray myArry = Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JArray.FromObject(returnWithoutFiltering.myQueryResults.Tables[0]);
foreach (var myVal in myArry)
{
Console.WriteLine($"SubAcct: {myVal["Subaccount"].ToString().Trim()}, Descr: {myVal["Description"].ToString().Trim()}");
}
}
Console.WriteLine();
// lets filter all sub accounts that contain the word "admin" in the description
var myFilters = new List<ctAPI.QuickQuery.queryFilter>
{
new ctAPI.QuickQuery.queryFilter {name = "Description", comparisonType = "LIKE", value="%admin%" }
};
// call the web service, requesting the “QQ_SubAccount” quick query to be run. Passing the myFilters array for filtering
var returnWithFiltering = QuickQueryService.getScreen("QQ_SubAccount", myFilters.ToArray());
{
// I like to convert to a JArray so that I can do other things with it. but lets loop through each row
Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JArray myArry = Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JArray.FromObject(returnWithFiltering.myQueryResults.Tables[0]);
foreach (var myVal in myArry)
{
Console.WriteLine($"SubAcct: {myVal["Subaccount"].ToString().Trim()}, Descr: {myVal["Description"].ToString().Trim()}");
}
}
}
private ctAPI.QuickQuery.quickQuery _quickQueryService = null;
public ctAPI.QuickQuery.quickQuery QuickQueryService
{
get
{
if (this._quickQueryService == null)
{
this._quickQueryService = new ctAPI.QuickQuery.quickQuery
{
Timeout = 300000,
ctDynamicsSLHeaderValue = new ctAPI.QuickQuery.ctDynamicsSLHeader
{
siteID = "YOURSITEID",
cpnyID = "YOURCPNYID",
licenseKey = "YOURLICENSEKEY",
licenseName = "YOUR LICENSE NAME",
licenseExpiration = "1/1/1900",
siteKey = "YOURSITEKEY",
softwareName = "CTAPI"
}
};
}
return this._quickQueryService;
}
set
{
this._quickQueryService = value;
}
}
Below here is the data structure of a subaccount from the Quick Query QQ_SubAccount
If you are connecting to one of Catalina’s API endpoints (either REST or SOAP) and you are using https://, if you get an error saying the “Connection was Forcibly Closed,” this is normally because the web server requires a specific TLS version and your client isn’t using that.
If you are writing this in .NET, this can be easily overcome by adding this statement before you make a call to our API (it is normally fine to put it in the constructor or in some startup routine):
Catalina’s RESTful API for Dynamics SL uses BASIC authentication. You can manage your authentication using Catalina’s ctConfigEditor.exe tool. This is normally installed on the API Web server in the c:\inetpub\xctFiles\ctConfigEditor folder. It may be different on your server so you may need to contact your IT administrator. The executable is ctConfigEditor.exe.
You will first need a few pieces of information from the web.config file of your ctDynamicsSL folder (the location where Catalina’s web services/API resides). The folder is normally located at: c:\inetpub\xctFiles\web\ctDynamicsSL. But could be in another location based on your server setup. You may need to contact your IT administrator to find out where it is.
Looking in the web.config, you should see several keys in the appSettings section that is required for ctConfigEditor to be able to read your authentication file:
LICENSEKEY
SITEKEY
APIKEYFILE
Once you have your licensekey, sitekey, and apikeyfile, you can run the ctConfigEditor tool.
Make sure you have the radio button “Modify Existing APIKEY File” as shown above. Then enter the APIKEYFILE in the Config File text box, the LICENSEKEY in the License Key text box, and the SITEKEY in the Site Key text box. Then you can press the “Next” button to be able to enter your API Keys for BASIC authentication.You can now edit/add/delete users for access to the system. There are 3 fields for each user:
APIKEY: this is the username that the user would be using in the RESTful API basic authentication
SECRETKEY: this is the password that the user would be using in the RESTful API basic authentication
SITES: This is a comma delimited list of sites the user can access
So, in the above example, I have 4 users
TESTINGUSER: This user can only access the TEST site
LIVEUSER and LIVEUSER2: These users can only access the LIVE site
DEVELUSER: this user can access both the LIVE and the TEST site
NOTE: Sites are basically configurations in Catalina’s API that point to different database strings and configurations. If you look in your web.config file, of the ctDynamicsSL folder, you can see an appSettings key called DSLCONFIGFILE. This is the location of a configuration file that has all the different sites setup. Below is an example of what a DSLCONFIGFILE would look like. You can see that there are 2 separate sites. Each with their own connection strings and configurations.
NOTE: Do not change your DSLCONFIGFILE unless you intend to change settings. This tutorial is NOT about DSLCONFIGFILE but about your API Keys.
So, now that we have our API Keys setup, lets do an example. If we want to use the following:
Use the TESTINGUSER API Key (with it’s password of “#5f8btpz@$S$viB#TVfJ”)
We are going to use the TEST SiteID
We will have a server name of yourserver.com
We want to retrieve the Customer “C300” from SL using the customer endpoint
NOTE: to create the authorization string, you would take the username and the password and create a string like this: “TESTINGUSER|#5f8btpz@$S$viB#TVfJ” and then base64 encode it. You will get the following value: VEVTVElOR1VTRVJ8IzVmOGJ0cHpAJFMkdmlCI1RWZko=
To create the header for “Authorization.” Take the base 64 encoded value and put “Basic” in front of it. Your end result would be the following: “Basic VEVTVElOR1VTRVJ8IzVmOGJ0cHpAJFMkdmlCI1RWZko=”
Looking at it in Postman looks like the following:
What happens if you are using Catalina’s API for Dynamics SL and your ID you are searching for (example a CustID, Vendor ID, etc) has a period in it? It will fail with standard installation. This is because the .NET web application is looking for a period in the final parameter so that it can route.
You will get a return that looks something like this with a 404 status and HTML coming back:
This can be solved by changing the web.config.
NOTE: if you make this change, then you wont be able to run SOAP and REST in the same application. SOAP will stop working and you would need to install a separate instance with it’s won web.config to make this work.
If you look in the Web.config, you will see the following line:
You will then need to change your sql connection strings
Which Connection String
What to Add
.NET Connection String
;Trusted_Connection=True;
ODBC Connection String
;Integrated Security=SSPI;
For both of these strings, you would remove the username and password from the strings and add the trusted_connection=True for the .NET connection string. And you would add the Integrated Security=SSPI for the ODBC connection string.
Configure the IIS Application Pool for the Identity
Next, you would go into IIS manager and click on Advanced Settings, look at “Identity” and click on the 3 dots button.
Then choose the “Custom Account” radio button and press the “Set” button.
Another popup will be displayed and you are then able to put in the username (replace the example below with your domain\username) and password. After you press OK, the system will tell you whether it is valid or not. NOTE: You will need to make sure that the user has access to the SQL objects in SQL server.
I did a demo on how to manage API Keys, for our RESTful API for Dynamics SL, using PowerScript. We are rolling out PowerScript management and installation tools for our products. Please contact us ([email protected]) if you are interested in receiving an early release.
sitekey: The encryption key used to encrypt connection strings and configurations
xctfiles: Root location of your xctfiles
addapisites: Comma Delmited list of sites to add to an API Key. Ex: ‘SITE1,SITE2,SITE3’
delapisites: Comma Delmited list of sites to remove from an API Key. Ex: ‘SITE1,SITE2,SITE3’
h: Help
delete: Will delete the key passed.
list: Will list the APIKeys. If a SiteID is passed, it will only list what was passed. If no siteID was passed (ex. ApiKeyManager.ps1 -list) it will list all APIKeys.
Examples
If you want to get a listing, you would enter: ./ApiKeyManager.ps1 -h
Passing the -list parameter will get you something similar to this
If you want to create a new API Key with the username = “APIKEY1”, password = “Passw0rd1”, give access to 3 sites (“TEST”, “LIVE”, “DEVEL”), your SiteKey (encryption key) is “1234567”, and the location of your xctfiles is c:\inetpub\xctFiles, you would enter the below:
