It is simple to call a stored procedure through a RESTful API call if you have Catalina’s API for Dynamics SL. You can call any stored procedure and pass parameters and retrieve data.
This is a demo on how to call a stored procedure using Postman and Catalina’s API for Dynamics SL.
First, to do this demo, you need to download and install Postman. Postman is a developer tool that allows you to interact with API’s easily so that you can test API calls to see how you call them and what data is returned. You can get Postman here: https://www.postman.com/
In the demo, we are going to call the stored procedure SOHeader_all. This stored procedure retrieves all Sales Order Headers (SOHeader) for a particular CpnyID and OrdNbr. NOTE: this is just an example. With Catalina’s API, you can call any stored procedure.
SOHeader_all has 2 parameters: – @parm1: This parameter is for the CpnyID – @parm2: This parameter is for the OrdNbr (can use a wildcard like ‘O000%’ which will bring back all orders that start with O000.
You can see what the procedure looks like here:
PROCEDURE [dbo].[SOHeader_all]
@parm1 varchar( 10 ),
@parm2 varchar( 15 )
AS
SELECT *
FROM SOHeader
WHERE CpnyID = @parm1
AND OrdNbr LIKE @parm2
ORDER BY CpnyID,
OrdNbr DESC
So, if you wanted to retrieve all orders that started with “O000” for CpnyID = “0060” you would call the stored procedure like this:
exec SOHeader_all @parm1='0060', @parm2='O000%'
So, now how to call this using Postman through Catalina’s API for SL?
First you need to know where your Catalina API is installed. I am going to use the server name yourserver.com as the domain name. So, for this example, we would look at the endpoint as the following:
As you can see above, you would replace yourServer.com with wherever your server is. And you can see <ProcedureName> in the URL. this would be replaced with the actual stored procedure name you want to call (in this example, we are going to replace it with SOHeader_all). So, the new URL for the endpoint would look like the following:
In Postman, you would make it look like below. NOTE: when calling a customSQL stored procedure, you must use the action type of “POST”
Next, you need to set the authentication. This is done on the “Authorization” tab. Catalina’s API uses “Basic Auth”. So, make sure that you set the type for “Basic Auth” in the dropdown. And then enter the username and password that was given to you from your installer.
After that, you will have been given a SiteID from your installer. You will need to create a Header for that SiteID. You do this on the headers tab. You should enter that SiteID (in my example it is “DEFAULT”, but you would use the SiteID given to you by your installer) and the default CpnyID (in my example that is “0060”, but you would use your CpnyID of your database)
Finally, you will want to enter the body of the parameters that are being passed. There are 2 parameters for SOHeader_all (@parm1 and @parm2). The format of the body that you would set is below.
So, your Body tab in Postman would look like this (NOTE: make sure you select the “raw” radio button as shown below)
Then all you have to do is simply hit the “Send” button and the system should retrieve the results from your stored procedure call. In my example, it looks like below
This is an example of how to use Quick Query as a data delivery tool for external systems using Catalina’s API for Dynamics SL. This example is for those who want to use a SOAP based interface.
1.In Visual Studio, we select the Visual C# Template for a Windows Form Application. Our client will be named: client.ctDynamicsSL.quickQuery.
Note: you can call the Catalina web services from any type of client that is able to make http/https calls, but for this example, we will use a Form Application.
2.Add a reference to our Quick Query Web Service a.Right click on “References” and select “Add Service Reference”
b.On the “Add Service Reference” screen, click the “Advanced” button in the bottom left. (Image: qqcclient3.png)
c.On the “Service Reference Settings” screen, click the “Add Web Reference” button. (Image: qqcclient4.png)
d.On the “Add Web Reference” screen, enter in the URL to the web service.
Click the arrow button to discover the web service schema.
After the service definition loads, enter in a name to refer to this service in your client.
E.g.: ctDynamicsSL.quickQuery
e.Click the “Add Reference” button.
f.The new web reference will show up in your project.
3.Create code to instantiate an object referencing our web service.
a.I like to store values that are required in the Soap Header in the app.config file using System.Configuration, so we will first add a reference to the System.Configuration assembly. References -> Add Reference -> System.Configuration
b.Create a private variable to store the actual object and a property to auto create the instance if the variable is null. This get{} property will pull the required header values from the app.config
Now whenever we want to call a function in the web service, we just reference it like so: myQQObj.functionName().
4.Add the necessary elements for our main Form.
a.TextBox for typing in a QueryViewName (tbQueryViewName)
b.Button for a QueryViewName search (btnSearch)
c.Button for executing our search (btnGetQuery)
d.DataGridView for holding our search parameters (dgvFilters)
e.DataGridView for holding our search results (dgvQueryResults)
5.Add a popup form for QueryViewName searches.
a.The QueryViewName is the root of the Quick Query Service; they are names of SQL Views built in to SL. This is a required element, so let’s build an easy way to lookup them up.
b.Add another Form object to the project: queryViewsPopup.cs
c.Add a DataGridView to the new Form object.
d.Click on the little arrow at the top right of the Grid and add ctDynamicsSL.quickQuery.vs_qvcatalog as the Data Source.
e.For ease of use, edit the DataGridView Columns.
Move the QueryViewName column to the first position.
Change Name to “QueryViewName” we will use this to reference the cell later.
f.On our main Form, tie an EventHandler to open this form.
g.Add a CellDoubleClick Event Handler, to take the selected row and return the QueryViewName back to the tbQueryViewName on the main Form.
6.Setup Filters DataGridView
a.The Quick Query Service getScreen call requires 2 parameters: queryViewName, filters[]. The filters parameter is of type: ctDynamicsSL.quickQuery.queryFilter.
b.The Filters is an array of triplets holding 3 required fields:
name – This must match the name of a column in the query view)
value – This is the value we are to filter/compare against)
comparisonType – This is any valid SQL comparison operator. E.g.: =, <, >, LIKE, IN, NOT IN
c.Select the Data Source as ctDynamicsSL.quickQuery.queryFilter
7.The Quick Query Service, is a V2 service by Catalina Technology and by design uses a screen() object for most calls that replicate the SL screen. Create a private variable to hold an instance of the screen object for all of our subsequent calls to the service.
8.Write the code to call the web service, pass the parameters and tie the results to the Result DataGridView (dgvQueryResults)
9.Test our Web Service Client:
a.Find a Query View with our popup.
b.Enter in some filters then Search and View the Results
Catalina has a simple queuing engine that allows you to track changes on any table in SQL server. There is then an API that allows you to retrieve items that have been queued so that you can take action on them. This is mostly done when you need to send Dynamics SL data, that has changed, to an outside system.
Example: A customer in Dynamics SL is modified in the SL Customer Maintenance Screen. You want to make sure that the customer terms, class, and other information makes it out to Salesforce.com (or other CRM system). Continue Reading →
