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):
Ok, so using Catalina’s API for Dynamics SL makes it easy to get data out of SL through it’s quick query endpoint (/ctDynamicsSL/api/quickQuery). But what if you really don’t actually use QuickQuery in SL. But you still want to use it in Catalina’s API? Easy, just create your view and then add a reference to it in QVCatalog table in your System Database.
Step 1: Creating the View
What I first am going to do is create a view in my Application Database. This will be a simple view that will retrieve customers. And only retrieve the CustID and Customer Name. Below is the SQL code to create my view named QQ_Brian.
/****** Object: View [dbo].[QQ_Brian] ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
CREATE VIEW [dbo].[QQ_Brian]
AS
SELECT
CustId AS [Customer ID], Name AS [Customer Name]
FROM Customer with (nolock)
GO
Step 2: Create a Reference to the View in QVCatalog
Next step is to insert a record into the QVCatalog table to reference the view. This table will be in your System Database. Below is what my insert looked like
Looking at the above insert statement, you see where I am using the name of my view (QQ_Brian) for SQLView, BaseQueryView, and QueryViewName. I am also using QQBRIAN as my number. You would change these values to what your view name is. I also entered a description (“Your Description Here”). Set that value to something that will allow you to remember what this view does.
Testing it!!!
Now all you have to do is test it. here is some curl code that shows you what I did to test my view in the Catalina’s API for SL, using Postman and our RESTful API for SL.
The above curl code will bring back all records that have the “Customer ID” field equal to “C300” (in my case, There Can be Only One). You can see what it would look like in Postman here:
The easier you make it for your customers to pay, the easier you can collect.
SL QuickCollect is payment solution for Dynamics SL that allows you to email or SMS message out a simple link to your customer as a request for payment. The customer can then click on the link and are sent to a PCI compliant payment page without any portal login required. Everything integrated directly with Dynamics SL.
Catalina’s API for Dynamics SL can be used for many things. We can retrieve all types of data from SL. We can also save transactions to SL. In this demo I did for several folks, I am taking sensor data and pushing it through an advanced rules based engine to create Service Calls in Dynamics SL.
While this demo highlights Dynamics SL, we could just as easily use these same types of rules based development to integrate with other systems like CRM, helpdesk, field service, etc. We can monitor all types of things like temperature, barometric pressure, vibrations (helpful if you an HVAC company and need to monitor your customer’s properties for problems), humidity, ambient light, flooding, and more.
Catalina’s SLQuickCollect is a way to send a request for payment to your customer as an email with a link to click to pay. Your customer simply clicks on it and pays (no need for a portal login or anything). The payment works through a PCI compliant payment processor and is automatically integrated back into Dynamic SL’s AR.
There are many ways to create SLQuickCollect links. One of which is calling a stored procedure by passing a few parameters.
The stored procedure is called: xct_spSLPaddInvoicePaymentRequest
The parameters to this proc is:
@batNbr: The batch number of the invoice you want to send
@refNbr: The invoice number you want to send
@CustID: The customer who the link is going to be going to
@paymentEmailList: A delimited list of email addresses the link will be sent to
@siteID: (optional) For which configuration site to use (defaults to ‘SLPAY’)
@setupID: (optional) The PayFabric setupID you are to send. If not passed, the default will be used from SLQuickCollect’s configuration
@deviceID: (optional) The PayFabric deviceID you are to send. If not passed, the default will be used from SLQuickCollect’s configuration
You can call this stored procedure from most anything. You could call it from a trigger when an invoice is created. You can call it from a SL screen. Or even another application all together (like maybe excel that has a list of invoices to send)
Here is an example of how I added a button on the Invoice and Memo screen to send a SLQuickCollect link for a particular invoice.
Below, you can see where I created a button “Send SLQuickLink” that will take the current invoice on the screen and send a payment request link to the customer.
Below is the code behind the click event of the button. This will look at the current batNbr, refNbr (invoice number), custID, and get the email tied to the customer to send the link to that customer’s email.
Private Sub bPayLink_Click()
Dim SQLStr As String
Dim Csr_temp As Integer
Dim sCustID As String
Dim recfound As Integer
Dim maintflg As Integer
sCustID = GetObjectValue("ccustid")
SQLStr = "Customer_All " + SParm(sCustID)
serr = SqlFetch1(Csr_temp, SQLStr, bCustomer, LenB(bCustomer))
Dim lsSQL As String
Dim liCursor As Integer
lsSQL = "xct_spSLPaddInvoicePaymentRequest" & SParm(ThisScreen.cbatnbr.Text) & SParm(ThisScreen.crefnbr.Text) & SParm(ThisScreen.ccustid.Text) & SParm(bCustomer.EMailAddr) & SParm("SLPAY")
Call sql(liCursor, lsSQL)
Call SqlFree(liCursor)
MsgBox ("SLQuickLink Sent to CustID " + ThisScreen.ccustid.Text + " for invoice " + ThisScreen.crefnbr.Text)
End Sub
Many of Catalina Technology’s stored procedures accept a field called @parms that is an XML field for configurable parameters to be passed. An example of this is below.
You can see that there is a parameter getting passed called “@parms”. In that is a XML string that contains one or more parameter. In this case, there is a single parameter called “ADDRID” and it is getting passed the value of “C%” so that it can return all addresses that start with a “C”
COVID-19 has made sending out invoices and getting paid has become a challenge. Catalina’s Account Central is a customer portal, for Dynamics SL, that allows customers to review statements, pay invoices or against their account, and manage their customer account in SL. All payments are through a PCI compliant payment processor. And all transactions are completely integrated with Dynamics SL
Because of COVID-19, sending out invoices and getting paid has become a challenge. Catalina’s SLQuickCollect allows you to get paid quicker by lowering the barrier of entry for customers to pay. We can simply send out a request for payment link to the customer via email. All they have to do is click on the link and make a payment through a PCI Compliant payment page (no Payment Portal login required.)
There are several ways that you can send out a link:
Add a button to most any screen in SL
Invoice and Memo: Send a link to pay the invoice
Sales Order Management Screen: Most likely to do a payment entry to collect a down payment
Shipper Screen
Any other screen that you might want to request payment
Automatically send links out when invoices are generated in SL
Add a button on Catalina’s Account Central or Order Central products
