Development Tips – ARKSD Consultancy Private Limited

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Walkthrough Extension Development in Online Sandbox – Business Central

September 15, 2021 Ashwini Tripathi

I have my Sandbox environment as below:

Details of the Sandbox as below:

Connecting VS code to above environment.

When you try to Publish the extension, it will ask you to authenticate.

Copy the Link and open in the browser and paste the code in the box as shown below.

Next it will ask for your Online Instance User Id & Password provide it and on confirmation close the page. It will start deploying the extension.

In this walkthrough I am using below scenario:

Requirement is we need to be able to define some code for dimension combinations. Let me say it will be Sales Code, you can choose name of your choice, this is not Salesperson code.

I am assuming these dimensions will follow the sequence as defined on my General Ledger Setup as below:

On Sales Order & Invoice user should be able to select this Sales Code and dimensions should be populated on order accordingly.

For tracking purpose this Sales Code should flow to Posted Sales Invoice and Customer Ledger.

So, Let’s Start with the development process:

Step-1 We will Create the Table

Here is the code for LookupDimValue Function, it will set filter for Dimension Code on Dimension Value table, as per the Dimension No passed. (1 is for Shortcut Dimension defined on General Ledger Setup, similarly for other 8 dimensions)

Step-2 Next, we will create the Page for this Setup

Step-3 Next, we will add the Sales Code field to all required Tables & Pages

Here is the code for AddDim Function. It is assumed that only combination provided in Sales Code Setup will be used. If you have defined Default dimensions or Combinations, those need to be preserved else this code will overwrite them. You will have to find the Data Set Entry, store them in temporary table used in below code and then add all the dimensions from the setup.

When you Select Sales Code on the Order or Invoice it will populate all the dimensions defined in the Setup.

Code for other Tables & Pages

Step-4 Next, we need to take care to flow the Sales Code to the Ledger and Posted documents.

For posted documents we need not to worry it will flow automatically provided we have defined the fields on same Id.

However, for ledger we will require to use Events to pass the data to their destinations. In this case we are only passing to Customer Ledger Entry. For this we will create a Codeunit.

To Add Event Subscriptions, Use the new Shift+Alt+E shortcut in the AL code editor to invoke a list of all events.

Search for the even you are looking for.

When pressing Enter to select an event entry, an event subscriber for the event will be inserted at the cursor position in the active AL code editor window.

Here is the Codeunit Code:

This is not the final code; much more can be done or need to be done before it can be delivered to customer for their use. Purpose of this walkthrough was to demo the way we can customize the solution using extensions and publishing to Online tenant in Sandbox.

Hope you enjoyed the information. Will come with more similar information in my next posts. Till then keep exploring, learning and sharing your knowledge with others.

Remain safe, take care of your loved ones, put your mask, maintain safe distance and don’t forget to get vaccinated.

AL, BC14, BC15, BC16, BC17, Business Central, Codeunit, Development Tips, Enum, Extension, How To, Install, JSON, SOAP, Tip & Tricks, V1, V2, Visual Studio Code, Wave 1, Wave 2, Web Client, Web Services, XML

Update Tracking Line, Post Shipment using Web Services in Business Central

February 17, 2021 Ashwini Tripathi

Hi, today I will discuss Web Service with below requirement. You can check other earlier post on this topic using search on right side of this blog page.

I got one request on topic from one of my customer cum blog follower, case study is as follows:

a) Will update Qty to Ship on document using Web Service from other application

b) Update Tracking Line for the Shipment using Web Service from other application

c) Post the Shipment using Web Service from other application

To get this we will create an Extension using VS Code which will have:

a) Codeunit with some functions which will be called using Web Service

b) A XML file to automatically expose above codeunit upon publishing this extension

Let us start how to achieve above requirement:

I have created this in BC16, will be same for other versions too.

Creating a AL Project:

Update your app.json & launch.json as per your environment, authentication, dependencies, port etc.

Creating a Codeunit: (TrackingCodeWS.al)

This function will be used to update “Qty. to Ship” on Sales Line

InitLot function as name suggests.

GetNextEntryNo function as name suggests.

It will depend on how you design your codeunit, you may require or not depends on logic how you use them.

AssignLotSalesLine is function which fills the lot details to temp Reservation Entry Table.

CreateReservationEntrySalesLine is the main function which actually makes your Tracking Lines and assign to Sales Line as per information filled in TempReservationEntry table in above function.

PostSalesOrder function is used for posting your Shipment.

Creating XML file to Publish Web Service

This XML file will ensure publishing of Web Service on Install of the Extension. You can directly make entry to Web Service table but benefit of using XML is when to Uninstall your extension the Web Service too will be removed, else if entry made to table you will have to take care to same yourself.

After Install of Extension, your Web Service is automatically Published.

Consume Web Service from Visual Studio

Below is the C# code to consume Web Service created above, you can modify code as per your requirement.

In above code we added Service Reference to Web Service and called functions created in Codeunit.

You can see earlier posts for step wise instruction how to add Web Reference to the Web Service in Visual Studio.

UpdateQtyToShipSalesLine:

Here “1” is used for Document Type = Order,”1008″ is my order no, 10000 is the Line No., 2 is the Quantity to Ship.

AssignLotSalesLine:

“L0001” & “L0002” is my Lot No, Serial No. is blank in this case, 1 is the Quantity, last three parameter is same as in above function call.

PostSalesOrder:

First 2 Parameter is same as above function call Document Type & Order No, third parameter is Ship = TRUE, Fourth Parameter is Invoice = FALSE.

Conclusion

This post gives you overall Idea how you can use Web Service to handle Sales Document from Web Service, you can make required modification to achieve exactly as per your requirement.

AL, API, Application, AppVersion, BC14, BC17, Business Central, Code, Codeunit, DataVersion, Dependencies, Development Tips, Dynamics 365, Extension, GetCurrentModuleInfo, GetModuleInfo, How To, Information, Instalation & Configuration, Install, Name, on-premises, OnInstallAppPerCompany, Publisher, Tip & Tricks, Version.Create, Visual Studio Code, Wave 1, Wave 2

Extension Install Code

January 9, 2021January 9, 2021 Ashwini Tripathi

Extension install code is executed when:

An extension is installed for the first time.
An uninstalled version is installed again.

This gives you control to write different logics for first time installation of extension and reinstallations of uninstalled extensions.

This is achieved by defining Install Codeunit in your Extension.

First thing first:

Subtype property of codeunit need to be set to Install
OnInstallAppPerCompany trigger is triggered when the Extension is Installed first time or subsequent install of same version on Extension.
DataVersion property one of the important properties which tells you what version of data that you’re dealing with.
AppVersion, DataVersion, Dependencies, ID, Name, and Publisher. These properties are encapsulated in a ModuleInfo data type. You can access these properties by using the NavApp.GetCurrentModuleInfo and NavApp.GetModuleInfo methods.
If the DataVersion property equals Version.Create(0,0,0,0), then it’s the first time that the extension is installed because no data exists in the archive.

Sample codeunit can be similar to below:

codeunit <ID> “Name of Codeunit”

{

// Install Logic

Subtype = Install;

trigger OnInstallAppPerCompany();

var

myAppInfo: ModuleInfo;

begin

NavApp.GetCurrentModuleInfo(myAppInfo);

// Get info about the currently executing module

if myAppInfo.DataVersion = Version.Create(0, 0, 0, 0) then

// A ‘DataVersion’ of 0.0.0.0 indicates a ‘fresh/new’ install

HandleFreshInstall

else

HandleReinstall;

// If not a fresh install, then we are Reinstalling the same version of the extension

end;

local procedure HandleFreshInstall();

begin

// Logic to execute on first time this extension is ever installed for this tenant.

// Some possible usages: – Initial data setup for use

end;

local procedure HandleReinstall();

begin

// Logic to execute on reinstalling the same version of this extension back on this tenant.

// Some possible usages: – Data ‘patchup’ work, for example, detecting if new ‘base’

// records have been changed while you have been working ‘offline’.

end;

}

Happy Learning.

AL, Array, BC14, BC17, Business Central, Collection, Development Tips, Dictionary, Dynamics 365, How To, Information, List, Modern Development Tool, on-premises, Tip & Tricks, Visual Studio Code, Wave 1, Wave 2, Web Client

Working with Collections

December 31, 2020 Ashwini Tripathi

Today we will learn three types of collections supported by AL.

A collection is a complex type that contains multiple values in one variable.

You can’t have values with different types in the same collection. For example, you can’t add date values in a collection that only allows integer values.

The three types of collections that AL supports are:

Array
List
Dictionary

We will discuss about each type of collections in this post with examples.

Let’s start with most familiar collection we have used with old versions of Navision too, yes you are right, I am talking about Arrays.

Arrays

Arrays are complex variables that contain a group of values with the same data type.

An array holds multiple values, and these values are stored in the elements of the array. You can access these values by using the index, which can also be a value that is stored in another variable. With this design, you can create a loop where you increment a certain variable to loop through every element in an array.

By using the Dimension property, you can define how many dimensions that the array will hold.

When creating a variable of an array data type, you first need to define how many elements that you’ll have in the array. The most commonly used array is the one-dimensional array, which is a list of elements with the same data type.

You can represent an array as a row of values.

To create an array, use the following code:

SalesAmount: array[10] of Integer;

To access an element in an array, use the array element syntax:

SalesAmount[5] := 0;

Unlike other programming languages array index don’t starts with 0 rather with 1. In above example first element will be 1 and last 10.

Having only one element between the square brackets indicates that you are using a one-dimensional array. If you want to have a multi-dimensional array, use a comma-separated list between the brackets, as follows:

SalesAmount: array[6,9] of Integer;

To access an element in an array, use the array element syntax:

SalesAmount[5,3] := 0;

Lists

The List data type can be compared with an array. The List type can only be used with fundamental types and represents a strongly typed list of values that can be accessed by index.

Therefore, you can have a List type of [Integer], but you cannot have a List type of [Blob].

A List data type doesn’t require you to define how many elements you want to store up front (while an Array data type does).

The List data type has some methods that are used frequently. The methods that are available for a List data type will discuss in a later post.

To create a list, use the following code:

CustomerNames: List of [Text];

To access an element in a list, use the following methods:

To store/add values to list

CustomerNames.Add(‘KSD Consultancy’);
CustomerNames.Add(‘Microsoft India’);
CustomerNames.Add(‘Ashwini Tripathi’);

To retrive values from list

CustomerNames.Get(1);

Dictionary

The Dictionary data type represents a collection of keys and values.

Every key that you create in this dictionary must be unique. The main benefit is that you can immediately get the value for a specific key.

The value can be a type, but it can also be a List or another Dictionary data type.

Blow code sequence will give you idea how to use dictionary data type:

//Declaring List

CustomerNamesIN: List of [Text];
CustomerNamesUS: List of [Text];
CustomerNamesCA: List of [Text];

//Declaring Dictionary

CountryWiseCustomer: Dictionary of [Code[20], List of [Text]];

//Assigning values to List

CustomerNamesIN.Add(‘KSD Consultancy’);
CustomerNamesIN.Add(‘Microsoft India’);
CustomerNamesIn.Add(‘Ashwini Tripathi’);
CustomerNamesUS.Add(‘Paul’);
CustomerNamesUS.Add(‘Linda’);
CustomerNamesCA.Add(‘Eddy’);
CustomerNamesCA.Add(‘Mark’);

//Assigning values to Dictionary

CountryWiseCustomer.Add(‘IN’,CustomerNamesIN);
CountryWiseCustomer.Add(‘US’,CustomerNamesUS);
CountryWiseCustomer.Add(‘CA’,CustomerNamesCA);

//Retrieving value from Dictionary

CountryWiseCustomer.Get(‘IN’).Get(1);

Here is the complete code:

Created new codeunit and declared variables & procedures to manipulate values in Collections.

Added Code to call procedures defined in codeunit, to assign and retrieve values from collections.

Now its time to check output of above code.

Hope you get idea how to work with Collections, you may find more posts in coming days where we may discuss about methods available for collection.

AL, BC14, BC17, Business Central, Development Tips, Dynamics 365, Enum, Extension Package, How To, Modern Development Tool, Option, Visual Studio Code, Wave 2, Web Client

Options VS Enums

December 31, 2020 Ashwini Tripathi

To define a variable of type Option, you can’t use the OptionMembers property that’s used on a field of data type Option. You need to list the available options as a comma-separated list after your variable definition.

For example:- Color: Option Red,Green,Yellow;

If you want to reuse the same Option type in other objects (like other codeunits, pages, or tables), you have to redefine all available values. Later, if you decide to add an extra value, you need to modify all objects with this extra value. Options in a table are not extendable with a table extension.

Solution to this is now available as enum.

An enum is a separate object with its own number and name. You can use an Enum object in other object without the need to redefine it at each object level. The Enum object can also be extended with enum extensions.

Lets see example defining and using enum.

I have created a EnumDefinition.al to define my custom enum Color.

I have defined one Function SelectColor to access values.

To call the Function and test result created extension of Customer List page and added code to access the value.

Now we can use this Enum throughout the extension in any objects without redefining it as in case of Option.

Let’s Publish the extension and see the result.

As you can remember from above code, I have selected color Green and have put the code to call of function on trigger of Customer List page, OnOpenPage.

The Enum object can also be extended with enum extensions.

Extending the Enum

Lets create new Extension, app.json file set dependencies to earlier/above Extension.

Next let’s extend our enum Color.

Next let’s create codeunit for function to access value of enum.

To call the Function and test result created extension of Customer List page and added code to access the value.

Let’s Publish the extension and see the result.

As you can remember from above code, I have selected color Red & Brown and have put the code to call of function on trigger of Customer List page, OnOpenPage.

Red is from earlier defined Color enum (Red, Green, Yellow), & Brown from extended enum (Blue, Black, Brown).

AL, API, Business Central, Development Tips, Extension Package, How To, Information, JSON, Modern Development Tool, OData, Tip & Tricks, V2, Visual Studio Code, What's New

API – Business Central Part-2

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019 Ashwini Tripathi

In our previous post we saw basics of API in Navision. Let’s explore further.

If you missed the earlier post you can find here API – Business Central Part-1

Continuing from where we left in previous post.

Someone asked me why we require API when we have web service in place and can achieve same OData either query or filter in same fashion.

So what I am going to explain below will answer to that query.

The API will generate a REST service which returns OData. The API is not the same as the OData web services that we discussed in our earlier post.

There we created an OData web service based on a card page. If there were fields that need to be displayed on a card in the client application but you do not want those fields to expose in the OData web service, you will have to create a second card page to solve this problem. In this case, we create a separate page for our API and only for the API. This page cannot be requested in the client application. It’s also much better concept to separate them from the regular pages.

Also we can apply templates for default value of field, which we will discuss later in below post.

Let’s start with creating our own API.

Each resource is uniquely identified through an ID. As discussed in our earlier post. So let’s start with this, I will start with my earlier created Table LoadoutPoint and add one field ID.

Any new entry in my table will have a unique ID for Loadout Point, so I have added code in OnInsert trigger of the table.

To create an API, you should create a page of type API, instead of a card page or list page.

Use tpage, Page for type API snippet for page structure. You get all the bare minimum properties to be added for API Page.

Then you have to define which fields you would like to include.

Some important rules to be followed for API Pages:

Fields should be named in the APIs supported format, Any Captions cannot have spaces and special characters. Only AlphaNumeric values permitted.
When you insert an entity through API endpoint, Business Central don’t run OnInsert trigger on the table.
And we have assigned the ID for the new record there. So Add Insert(true) for OnInsert Trigger.
Add business logic to Modify trigger. As external user can change values through API, even the value of the primary key field.
Add Delete(true) for On Delete trigger. The reason same as above.

So let’s add these 3 trigger in our page too.

Ok so now we have modified Table and Created new API page, now it’s time to publish our app/extension.

Use command palette to publish your app.

Now it’s time to test, let’s access our API page from client and do setup for same.

Search for API Setup Page in the client.

You can define and assign your Template from Template Code field, check with available same Templates how to do it.

Also the conditions when this Template should apply as discussed in earlier post also.

Now let’s access the API from outside the Navision/ Business Central.

I will use Postman to test this.

To get the list of 44 standard APIs.

https://KSD-DESKTOP:7748/BC130/api/beta/

To get the list of custom APIs.

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/api/ksdconsultancy/app1/v1.0/

Hope you remember when we created API page we assigned few Properties like

APIPublisher = ksdconsultancy, APIGroup = app1, APIVersion = v1.0.

Now we will use those values to access my custom APIs.

See the url those are included after /api/

All information is available in JSON format and further can be confirmed that there are 1000 records. Thus, the number of records integrated here depends on the Max Page Size parameter setup in Navision Server.

What else you can do with APIs:

Get to fetch or List
Post to insert records
Patch to modify records
Delete to Delete records
And so on.
You can extend existing API Pages too, I have yet not tried.

That we may discuss in some other post. Not to complicate this topic more for now I conclude this post here.

Will come up with more details in my upcoming posts, till then keep exploring, learning and take good care of yourself.

API, Business Central, Development Tips, EDMX, How To, Information, JSON, OData, Tip & Tricks

API – Business Central Part-1

January 16, 2019 Ashwini Tripathi

In today’s post we will discuss about API’s in Business Central.

A Connect app establishes a point-to-point connection between Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and a 3rd party solution or service and is typically created using standard REST API to interchange data.

Any coding language capable of calling REST APIs can be used to develop your Connect app. Because the API uses standard REST, we can use OData to query the results.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central API allows you to read and modify business data through apps that are connected and integrated through a single endpoint.

For Example:- You can use the API to get access to customer, vendor and other information, update sales orders, or view overdue payments etc.

Endpoint

Production Endpoint –

https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/v1.0/api/beta

Development and Test Endpoint –

https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/v1.0//api/beta

On Premise –

https://Server Name:Odata Port/Service Name/api/beta/

I am going to use my as I am running on On Premise :-

https://KSD-DESKTOP:7748/BC130/api/beta/

Enter the URL to get the list of 44 standard APIs. (Format of the URL for Business Central on-Premise is given as above:

I am using Postman to send GET request to my API endpoint.

Authentication

Azure Active Directory (AAD)

Basic authentication. Username and web service access key as password.

How to get web service access key?

Tips for working with the APIs

Some tips for working with the APIs are:

When you call the endpoint via GET, you get a list of all the available API’s.

When you call the endpoint via GET with $metadata, you get a list of all the available API’s with their metadata.

When you call the endpoint via GET with $filter, you can use the OData Filter Expressions as discussed in earlier post.

Each resource is uniquely identified through an ID.

Microsoft has added to its most of the tables as:

Enabled	Field No.	Field Name	Data Type	Length	Description
Yes	8000	Id	GUID

If you had to make your any table data available through API add this field to your tables. We will look into other aspects later in below post.

The resource ID must be provided in the URL when trying to read or modify a resource or any of its children. The ID is provided in ( ) after the API endpoint. For example, to GET the “CRONUS International Ltd.” company details, you must call:

https://KSD-DESKTOP:7748/BC130/api/beta/companies

From above request I get id of my company as : ab76c7b4-3c72-4805-86f7-7d91a10612ce now I will query Entity Item.

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/api/beta/companies(ab76c7b4-3c72-4805-86f7-7d91a10612ce)/items

To enable API we need minimum 2 of the below conditions to be met.

ID field in table of type GUID
Page of type API

Let’s see in Business Central how it is setup and understand before we create our own API.

Open the Page API Setup.

If you Lookup the Page ID, you will get list of Pages that Microsoft have provided as API.

AllObjWithCaption.”Object ID” WHERE (Object Type=CONST(Page),Object Subtype=CONST(API))

This relation is used for the Lookup. Means the Subtype should be defined as API.

Next you have Template Code – Since may be possible we don’t expose all fields or not necessary the values for every field is provided when API is submitted. To fill the default values for those field we assign the Template Code.

Description – you can setup as required.

Conditions – You can define condition when this Template should apply.

Before we move further ensure below setup to Server Instance properties and OData properties. Check and set the ‘Max Page Size’ to number of records you want to integrate.

At the time of writing this post have no idea of how to alter the number of records that can be integrated in Business Central on Cloud may update in future.

I stop here for today’s post. Will come up with more details in my next upcoming post.

Till then keep learning and exploring and take good care of yourself.

Meet you again in my next post with more details.

API, AtomPub, Business Central, Development Tips, Dynamics 365, EDMX, How To, Information, JSON, OData, REST, RPC, SOAP, Tip & Tricks, Web Services, WSDL, XML

Web Services – Business Central Part- 1

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 Ashwini Tripathi

You can use web services in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to expose data to the outside world.

You can use web services to get data from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and use it in other applications.

Any application, programing language or program that can work with XML and/or JSON for example: – Power BI, Microsoft PowerApps, a custom .NET program, etc. can connect to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central fetch the available data.

A web service can also be used to create new or update existing data in the application.

Both XML (Extensible Markup Language) and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) are open-standard file formats that are readable by humans. They are used to send information between clients over web services.

In this post we will discuss some terminology and differences between SOAP and OData. We will also learn on how to configure these services in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

SOAP relies on HTTP(S), SMTP, FTP for message negotiation and transmission.

The most common type of messaging pattern in SOAP is the Remote Procedure Call (RPC), where one network node (the client) sends a request message to another node (the server), and the server sends a response message to the client. It uses SOAP envelope, which defines the message structure and how to process it.

A SOAP service exposes a WSDL (Web Services Description Language) file that describes how the service can be called, what parameters it expects and what data structure it returns. This file is an XML based document, and is targeted to be read by machines, not by humans.

OData (Open Data Protocol) is an open protocol that is designed to use and query RESTful APIs. An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of routines and protocols that is used to communicate between different software components.

OData is built upon REST services and can be used to query REST services. By providing extra query parameters to a URL, you can for example limit or filter the result set.

SOAP exposes a WSDL document, OData exposes an EDMX document, which contains metadata for all the published web services.

You can see all the available OData web services by going to the search box and search for web services. This page is used to enable access to OData and SOAP web services.

OData web services can only be used with object types pages and queries, not with codeunits. There are two versions of OData you can use, version 3 and version 4. Version 4 is an enhanced version, and important to know is that version 4 returns JSON where version 3 returns AtomPub documents which are XML documents.

From this window you can add new or manage existing Web Services.

It is simple 2 Step task Add new object give service name and enable Publish checkbox. You will get your OData and/or SOAP URL.

For example: – object type page can be used in OData and in SOAP web services.

Let us explore the Web-Service Urls. For test purpose, I have created a Service with the name Customers for Page Customer Card.

https://ksd-Desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers

When we open, for example, our Customers web service, we can have a look at the URL.

First we have our server name and the port it’s using. “https://ksd-Desktop:7748”

Then we have our instance name, which in our case is BC130.

Then our OData version, so version 4. “ODataV4”

And then our company name, “Cronus International Ltd”.

And then finally our web service name, which is, in our case, “Customers”.

Let’s try this url, when we execute this url in our browser we get json file listing customers similar to below:

Here etag is the unique identifier of each records, it will be required when you update records, will discuss later.

If I remove my service name then:

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)

{“@odata.context”:”https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/$metadata#Company/$entity”,”Name”:”CRONUS International Ltd.”,”Evaluation_Company”:false,”Display_Name”:”CRONUS International Ltd.”,”Id”:”ab76c7b4-3c72-4805-86f7-7d91a10612ce”,”Business_Profile_Id”:””}

If I remove my Company Name then:

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/

If I open the metadata url

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/$metadata

You will get EDMX file which shows metadata about the information in the OData web service.

You can see some properties with our data types. For example, if we scroll down, if we go to Customers, we have our entity type Customers, we can see some properties which our data types and max lengths. We can also see what properties are primary key. So this is number and so on. So all useful information when you’re creating applications that use these OData web services.

Filtering the OData

You can set filter expression to the url few examples as below:

We will use the filter option top for limiting the result to top 5 records of customer.

After our service name, we type question mark, then the dollar sign, and then the word top equals 5.

For example :

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers?$top=5

Now the query will result in only first 5 records for customer.

If we want to see next 5 records then we can append &$skip=5 on above url

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers?$top=5&$skip=5

If you want to see specific customer you can modify url as:

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers(‘10000’)

Please refer to EDMX file to find correct name of the fields if wants to filter on specific fields.

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers(‘10000’)?$select=Name

You will get the result as below for above url query

“@odata.context”:”https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/$metadata#Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers/$entity”,”@odata.etag”:”W/\”JzQ0O044eFNmcWdXV0NpYlhTZDhUdTlrdytZUmdQbWRkL2U4TzZ4UEsxNGtod0

E9MTswMDsn\””,”Name”:”The Cannon Group PLC”}

You can add other fields too by appending the url with ‘,’

Customers(‘10000’)?$select=Name,City,Address……………

As told earlier please refer to EDMX file for correct Fields Name or Property it is case sensitive.

You can remove the Primary Key from the url to get list of selected fields for all customers.

Customers?$select=Name,City,Address……………

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers?$orderby=City&$select=Name,City,Address

You can use orderby to sort the data from other than Primary key, by default it is sorted by Primary Key.

You can use desc for descending sort.

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers?$orderby=City desc&$select=Name,City,Address

You can use filter to filter specific field values as:

https://ksd-desktop:7748/BC130/ODataV4/Company(‘CRONUS%20International%20Ltd.’)/Customers?$filter=City eq ‘Zutphen’ or City eq ‘Atlanta’&$select=Name,City,Address

you will get output as:

You can use expressions like [filter=Balance_LCY gt 0] or [filter=Location_Filter eq ‘BLUE’] etc.

I stop here for today. We have seen how the Web Services OData can be used to query records.

We will discuss about other stuffs in our next post in more details.

Till then keep exploring and learning, see you in next post. Take Care of yourself.

AL, Automated Testing, Business Central, Development Tips, Dynamics 365, Extension Package, How To, Information, Modern Development Tool, Test Codeunit, Tip & Tricks, V2, Visual Studio Code

Automated Testing in Business Central

January 8, 2019January 8, 2019 Ashwini Tripathi

Testing is the essential part of the software development process and Cover User Scenarios.

Developers take care of their unit tests and perhaps, some wider coverage when they deliver a finished module. When developer tests the software he only tests scenarios for which he have done development.

In manual testing, since there are usually only humans involved, there will without doubt be discrepancies in the burden that test are conducted. There’s is always the trade-off between whether or not to conduct a full test scenarios for every delivery. In most scenarios tests are performed to areas of application, those are relevant for the current release. Like why should you repeat the purchasing scenarios if you only made a change to the sales process for example?

Automated testing brings a level of insistency and repeatability to testing that is impossible to achieve with just humans. By using a tool that facilitates automated testing, you can run as many test, as many times, as you want with a guarantee that each and every test will run exactly the same way as the first time. You can actually prove that a change in the sales process will not affect the purchasing process.

The key to successful automated testing is that you can link test scenarios to user scenarios. To make your development process itself test-based, by writing proper test at the start of the development process will give you clear and concrete requirements that the software has to meet.

Repeatability of running test scenarios is another key ingredient of automated testing. Manual testing can be very tedious task that can cause a human tester to lose focus. Added project pressure can add to the temptation for tester to skip the unimportant pieces of the test scenarios. How many times do you have to make sure that you can’t enter text string in an amount field for example?

Automated testing is a predefined set of Instructions that always run, no matter what time, no matter how eager the project manager wants the results, no matter how hungry you are, the test scenario is defined and it will execute every instruction every time that the test runs.

It will run exactly the same manner each and every time. You can spin as many sessions you need and simulate real load test. You can potentially scale this up to hundreds or even thousands of users at the same time and really test the limits of your software’s capabilities. Even in larger organizations it will never be possible in a manual test situation.

Manual testing is great to prove that a new piece of software meets the requirements. But what is not always clear is whether a new change in the software has had any adverse effects on existing functionality in other areas. Whereas in case of automated testing provides the capability to prove that all test scenarios can still give you the same test results over time, whenever you make any changes to any part of the software. Since you can schedule automated tests, you can run a full system test overnight or weekend, when you come back at your desk in the next morning you can look at the outcome of the latest test run and focus on just the ones that failed.

Test that are included in the standard business central test toolkit, cover the entire application. You can run the full length of thousands of those test in a matter of hours. So, combined with a build script, you can automate the creation of a new tenant, implement your compiled app, run selected tests and then, evaluate the results in a fraction of the time, which it would take a team of manual testers to do the same thing in hours. Automated testing provides the capability to run a full test set every single day or multiple times a day. If you have that capability, why not use it?

You can organize your development process to include daily build process and include a full sweep of the entire set of tests, and almost guarantee a 100 percent success when you are ready to deliver your software.

Those working on AppSource apps, will not have a choice on matter. Automated testing is mandatory for your app source submission.

Conclusion best way to do testing will be take a fresh demo database of BC, install your app and test the user scenario. If you need to prepare any data is necessary to successfully complete the user scenarios or the test scenarios, the creation of that data should be part of the installation process of your app, and or your test app. Most important feature should be included is the ability to run them in a non-super role, it should not be mandatory to have super rights in order to use your app. Make sure you include the test for non-super users as well.

Oh!! Today lots of lecture. Let’s see how we can implement this, although writing test scripts is not a easy task, require lots of efforts to cover all scenarios and knowing the system well in advance, with clear set of inputs and outputs, else even you pass test scenario chances to fail in real word cannot be avoided.

Below are the steps we follow to create an automated test script. Below is not the full and final, it is just an idea how we can implement this, rest you have to use your experience and skills to complete as per your requirement and project need.

Not compulsory but it will be better if we can use fresh database for this task. We will have only our Extension on which we are going to run this Automated Test and the Extension which we are creating in this post for Auto Test.

Step – 1 : Nav/BC Preparation

If not already imported you need to import Set of objects to enable automated testing. You can find them on installation disk under TestToolKit folder.

If creating a Docker Container use option –includeTestToolkit in the new NavContainer Cmdlet.

Once you are done now you can run your Test Tool

Hold on, we will come to this later in below post.

Step – 2 : VS Code Project Preparation

Create a New project, and add Folder Structure to arrange your files.

You can find steps in this post : Bare Minimum Steps to Start with fresh Extension Project for Business Central

We need to Specify test target as a dependency. For this it is compulsory to have the apps symbols file to make this work. Install your Extension on this database if not already deployed.

We need to import symbols for the Test Framework as well. So need to specify ‘test’ settings to the app.json file of this project. Specify minimum supported value e.g. 12.0.0.0

Once these two settings are done, now when you hit Download Symbols it will include the Symbols for your Extension and Test Toolkit Objects.

Now you can see 2 additional package symbol files are downloaded.

KSD Consultancy_MyFirstExtensionProject_1.0.0.0.app
Microsoft_Test_13.0.24209.0.app

And 2 std. symbol file that gets included when you create any new Extension Project.

Step – 3 : Writing Test Codeunits

We will create a codeunit of Subtype = ‘Test’

Test procedures are decorated with [Test] attribute

Your OnRun will execute first, followed by other all test procedures.

You can use [TransactionModel] attribute to specify each test procedure is in a separate database transaction.

The output will be Success or Failure.

Failure is any error that is raised by the test code or from the code which is being tested. In either case Other Test procedures will still continue.

Other Features are Test Pages and UI Handlers, we will discuss on same in some other similar post.

AssertError statement is like if I do this error should come, it happens then your test is Success. In this case Failure is actually Success as you knowingly created error.

As I told earlier also this is very complicated area, to write Test Scripts, but if you start practicing from small stuffs eventually you will learn and will able to write a good Test Scripts. You can check out other standard Test Codeunits and update your knowledge how you can write your own Test Scripts.

My sample Test Codeunit looks something like below, it is just for idea in real scenario there should be lots more.

Step – 4 : Deploy & Run the Test App

Publish your Test App.

Go to Extension Management

You will find 2 Extension, The Initial Extension which we created in earlier posts and the Extension we just deployed.

Now open the Test Toolkit Page – 130401

Click on Get Test Codeunits function then Select Test Codeunits

Now Select the Codeunit we just created.

You can select other Codeunits as per the requirement, in my case I am just going to select my Codeunit which we created in this post.

This will list all the functions available in the Test Codeunit.

Now you can select Run all or Run Selected. To test your App, I will select Run All.

Here is the final output of test result

Hope you will agree the test we performed, same if done manually no one can test the same in 6 seconds as this did. And we can perform as many times, and any time.

Once your Test Codeunit in place whenever you make changes to app, you can just run the test and verify that any changes you made have not impacted the existing functionality in any manner.

To save the time in testing, you have to pay in other way in creating the test codeunit as it is not that easy to cover every user scenario in your test codeunit and will require lots of efforts.

But when you are working for App Source you have no choice, you will have to do it.

Today the post got bit longer, but this topic is very complicated and require explanation. Hope you got the starting point from this and will put your efforts to reach to your required conclusion, take help of existing codeunit, nothing will be better than those to learn how Microsoft themselves implements it.

See you again with some more topics, and if get some extra time will try to add more to this post as a second part to this post. Fact is one post is not sufficient for such a huge topic.

Till then keep exploring and learning and take care of yourself.

AL, API, Business Central, Control Add-In, Development Tips, Extension Package, How To, Information, Java Script, jQuery, JSON, Modern Development Tool, Style Sheet, Tip & Tricks, V2, Visual Studio Code, Web Client

Control Add-In in Business Central

January 5, 2019January 5, 2019 Ashwini Tripathi

Today I will discuss about how we can create control add-in using VS Code & Extensions in Business Central.

We can create a control add-in the same way we created pages or code units. In Visual Studio we can use the code snippet T control add-in to generate a new control add-in.

It will better to create a fresh Extension Project in VS Code for control add in.

Step – 1 : Preparation

Create a New project, and add Folder Structure to arrange your files.

You can find steps in this post : Bare Minimum Steps to Start with fresh Extension Project for Business Central

I will create below Folder:

ControlAddIn
Images
JsScript
Page
StyleSheet

Step – 2 : Create Control Add-In

In control add-in folder I’m going to create a new control add-in. So new file.

Use the snippet, T control add-in, to create a control add-in.

Give the name to your control add-in in my example I have used “WeatherControlAddIn”

A control add-in works with JavaScript files that can execute some code. The scripts property is used to reference these JavaScript files. They can be local files or references to external files over http or HTTPS. A very commonly used JavaScript library is jQuery. JQuery makes it a lot easier to write JavaScript code and it reduces the lines of code significantly. In our case any such files will be saved in JsScripts folder under Extension-> Objects Folder as setup above. One file we will create for StartupScript as Start.js.

Now let’s include jQuery. We have to download jQuery from the Internet. So if we open our Web browser and we go to the jQuery website, we can click the download jQuery button over here. But instead of really downloading the jQuery files, we are going to reference them online.

Open the site: https://jquery.com/

Click on Download jQuery v3.3.1 large button as shown above.
Scroll down to find: – Microsoft CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Microsoft also has a CDN for jQuery. We take that one.
Copy the link to the latest one. Add this to our Scripts property in our control add-in.

“https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-3.3.1.js”

Use the URL of jQuery file. There’s also a property start-up script which you can use to call a special script that runs when the page where you have implemented your control add-in is loaded. Now let’s add our start.js script over here. So because it’s in the folder script, we have to “Objects/JsScripts/Start.js”. Now, there’s also a recreate and a refresh script. We are not going to use them in this demo project, so remove them. And with the images and the style sheets properties you can specify additional style to the control add-in.

Scripts = ‘https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-3.3.1.js’;

StyleSheets = ‘Objects/StyleSheet/StyleSheet.css’;
StartupScript = ‘Objects/JsScripts/Start.js’;
Images = ‘Objects/Images/Weather.jpg” />

I am using dummy image to display on my control add-in, select your image accordingly and place it in Images folder.
We will look into StyleSheet.css and Start.js later in below post.

This is how your WeatherControlAddIn.al should look like.

Step – 3 : Create Style Sheet

I will be adding a CSS file to this with the name StyleSheet.css. In this CSS file I can apply some layout styles to give my control add-in a color or let it choose a certain font and so on and so on. But remember there are some guidelines on which styles to apply. I’m going to set my image to a width 200 pixels. So in CSS, this is image. Width, 200 pixels, and a margin top of 25 pixels. And then I need to reference it in my style sheet properties. This is ‘Objects/StyleSheet/StyleSheet.css’ and of course in the folder StyleSheet.

You can apply your knowledge about stylesheets to decorate your add-in accordingly, for demo purpose I have just set the width and top margin of the image.

Similarly I have downloaded an image from internet related to weather and copied to Images Folder.

Now set the path of both the files in your control add-in as shown above.

Step – 4 : Create CardPart Page

Now, our control add-in will run in a CardPart. So we have to create a page. Let’s create a new file and call this WeatherCardPart.al. This is a page. So T page. Let’s give it an ID and a name. WeatherCardPart. Now the source table will be customer. And the page type is CardPart.

Your Page should look similar to below:

We have added our ControlAddIn on the CardPart.

Next we will pass data from our Navision to the JQuery Script to process, to do so we have added a local procedure GetCustomer, remember above in control add-in we added signature of this procedure. Now it’s time to implement that function.

We have created a JsonObject to store our data and pass to Control Add-In.

This function gets called from OnAfterGetRecord trigger of the Page.

You may be wondering about function call QueryTempOfCity, this is the same function which we used in our earlier post to call API and get temperature of specified city then updated the Headline of the RC Page.

If you missed you can find that post here: Working with Headline Role Center Page and HTTP Call – Business Central

I have copied some functions from that post and changed a little bit and added to this page, it should be like below:

This function will take City as parameter and query from API and return the current temperature of that city. This function is explained in referenced post above.

Step – 5 : Create Page Extension

CardPart runs in a factbox on a page. So let’s create a page extension on the customer card. So new page. Let’s call this customercardextension.al. which extends the customer card. Add a factbox in the factboxes, and this is a part — let’s give it a name. WeatherCardPart. And this is of type WeatherCardPart. When adding a part or a factbox, then need to set the sub page link. So don’t forget to set the sub page link and this is equal to the number equals field number.

It should be similar to above.

Step – 6 : Create jQuery Script

Here comes the most interesting and difficult part as we are not regular Java Script programmer, but thanks to google, who is always there to help.

We will create our Start.js

You can apply your Java Scripts skill to enhance this, let us keep it simple for learning purpose.

We will extract the information send via GetCustomer function in JsonObject and display in our Control Add-In.

You can say controlAddIn here as main outer container.

We have defined 4 sub containers and with unique id to reference further.

Now we add all this 4 sub-containers to the main container controlAddIn.

Get the values from the Navision CardPard GetCustomer function and decode the JsonObject Customer and extract value from it and assign to these 3 containers.

For 4th we have assigned the image path from Extension using special function Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.GetImageResource

Step – 7 : Deploy and Test the Control Add-In

So now we are done with Creating of Control Add-In, deploy your extension by using command pallet, Publish you Extension.

Open the Customer Card and you should see your Control Add-In in action.

Tested successful. Here we come to the end of our today’s post.

Hope you liked and enjoyed learning the concept in this post.

Will come up with more such interesting concepts in my future posts.

Till then keep exploring and learning. Take Care of yourself.

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Arrays

Lists

Dictionary

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Filtering the OData

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