Integration with third party using OData and Data entities

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Hello all!

I have to develop interfaces for a third party which will GET and POST data to my D365FO. I have chosen Data entities and ODATA for this. Could anyone tell how I will be able to access the request body in X++ code so that I can return the response accordingly.

Also any resources for the process would help.

Thank you

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Martin Dráb 237,985 Most Valuable Professional on at

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D365FO already handles that for you - it'll read the request, act on it and return the requested data. For example, it'll return record matching given criteria or update a record with provided values.

You can influence the behevior of an entity by overriding its method or using extensions, but you don't work with low-level concepts such as HTTP message body.

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Thanks Martin for the response!

The third party will send me the parameters and data in the request body in JSON format. Reading your response, this means that I wont be able to read the body? How should the third party send me the data then?

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Martin Dráb 237,985 Most Valuable Professional on at

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As I said: if we're talking about data entities accessed through OData, which you claimed above, then it's already supported by D365FO and there is no need for trying to handle requests by yourself.

Do you want to suggest that the information was wrong and they won't really send OData requests to work with data enties, but some other HTTP requests? If so, please realize that you gave us no information about that so far. You'll have to explain your situation before we can comment on it.

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Okay! Let me explain the scenario here.

I need to create a API endpoint that I will share with the third party. Lets say the URL is https://<base_url>/orders.

The third party will then send a GET request to the URL and send the JSON data in the body like this

{

custCode: "CUST-001",

currency: "USD"

}

I need to read this body and then return the orders for the specified customer in the specified currency like this (in JSON)

{

custCode: "CUST-001",

orders: [

{

orderId: "ORDER-001",

itemId: "ITEM-001"

},

{

orderId: "ORDER-002",

itemId: "ITEM-002"

}

]

}

This is the exact scenario where I need to read the request and respond with the data. Also, I need this scenario to be real time.

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Martin Dráb 237,985 Most Valuable Professional on at

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All right, then you're not talking about OData.

You have two options:

1) Change your requirements. Let the integration architect explain the other party how D365FO APIs look like and try to convince them to use these APIs.

2) Implement your own middle-tier service translating between requests from the third party to requests that can be handled by D365FO (either by OData services or custom services).

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Thanks for the help Martin!

I looked other integration strategies in D365FO and found the Custom services in which we can expose a method as a service endpoint using AIF attributes.

But then I found that AIF is deprecated from AX 7 and is replaced with DIXF.

Can I expose the methods now as a service using DIXF or any other framework available?

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Martin Dráb 237,985 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Yes, I mentioned custom services above, but neither custom service meet your requirements about the URL and the message format. If you want to use them, you must adjust your requirements.

You can learn more about them in D365FO documentation (Custom service development). (It's not AIF.) Also note that OData offer actions, in addition to CRUD operations with entities (more in documentation under Open Data Protocol (OData)).

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Thanks for the response Martin.

I implemented a sample custom service for testing and that gave me the desired results.

My only query left is regarding the "$id": "1" in the response object. What exactly is this extra field that is there and how can I remove it? (screenshot attached)

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Martin Dráb 237,985 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Your response looks wrong to me. Instead of returning structured data in a JSON object, you're returing a mere string value (in the 'data' property). Something must be wrong in your implementation.

Use a data contract class representing your data. It should have a parm* method with DataMember attribute for each property, such as Amount. You'll return this class from your service operation.

The class need to be decorated with DataContract attribute, and if you want to get rid off $id, add also Newtonsoft.Json.JsonObjectAttribute(IsReference = false).

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Thanks Martin! Newtonsoft.Json.JsonObjectAttribute(IsReference = false) solved the $id issue.

Regarding the response, as I said this was a sample service for testing, I just returned the input data as a string just to verify the working of the service.

Thanks anyways!

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