This blog explains the integration option to export data entities from Dynamics 365 F&O into a Microsoft Azure SQL database. D365FO provides a feature via Data Management Frame called bring your own database (BYOD). The BYOD feature lets D365 administrators export one or more data entities that are available in D365FO into an Azure SQL database.
The BYOD feature lets:
Define one or more SQL databases that admin can export D365 FO entity data into.
Export either all the records (full push) or only the records that have changed or been deleted (incremental push).
Use the rich scheduling capabilities of the batch framework to enable periodic exports.
Access the entity database by using Transact-SQL (T-SQL), and even extend the database by adding more tables.
The BYOD feature is recommended for the following use cases:
You must export data into your own data warehouse.
You use analytical tools other than Power BI, and those tools require T-SQL access to data.
You must perform batch integration with other systems.
D365 FO BYOD: Steps to setup the BYOD for Integration
D365 FO BYOD: Steps to Create Azure SQL Database
To create a resource group, server, and single database in the Azure portal:
From the Search bar, search for and select Azure SQL.
On the Azure SQL page, select Add.
On the Select SQL deployment options page, select the SQL databases tile, with Single database under Resource type. You can view more information about the different databases by selecting Show details.
Select Create.
On the Basics tab of the Create SQL database form, under Project details, select the correct Azure Subscription if it isn’t already selected.
Under Resource Group, select Create new, enter resourceGroupName, and select OK.
Under Database details, for Database name enter D365FOBYODDEV.
For Server, select Create New, and fill out the New server form as follows:
Server name: Enter D365FOBYODDEV, and some characters for uniqueness.
Server admin login: Enter azureuser.
Password: Enter a password that meets requirements, and enter it again in the Confirm password field.
Location: Drop down and choose a location, such as West Europe.Select OK.
Record the server admin login and password so you can log in to the server and its databases. If you forget your login or password, you can get the login name or reset the password on the SQL server page after database creation. To open the SQL server page, select the server name on the database Overview page.
Under Compute + storage, if you want to reconfigure the defaults, select Configure database. On the Configure page, you can optionally:
Change the Compute tier from Provisioned to Serverless.
Review and change the settings for vCores and Data max size.
Select Change configuration to change the hardware generation.After making any changes, select Apply.
Select Next: Networking at the bottom of the page.
On the Networking tab, under Connectivity method, select Public endpoint.
Under Firewall rules, set Add current client IP address to Yes.
Select Next: Additional settings at the bottom of the page.
On the Additional settings tab, in the Data source section, for Use existing data, select Sample.
Select Review + create at the bottom of the page.
Get the connection string details from the Azure portal
Log In to the Azure portal, go to your Azure Database for SQL server, and then click Connection strings to get the string list for BYOD instance:
D365 FO BYOD Data source Configuration
Log into D365FO
Then Go to Systems Administrations > Workspace > Data management
Click on > Configure Entity Export to database
Then click on New Now fill the data
source name and
description
Enter the connection string. It should be in the format: Data Source={azure.database.windows.net},1433;Initial Catalog={database};Integrated Security=False;User ID={userid};Password={password}
The click on Validate Note: You have to add the client ip on Azure SQL Firewall
Publishing Data Entities
To make a data entity available in your BYOD database, you need to first publish it. This simply creates the table in the BYOD database. The Publish page enables several scenarios:
Publish new entities to the database.
Delete previously published entities from the database. (For example, you might want to re-create the schema.)
Compare published entities with the entity schema. (For example, if new fields are added later, you can compare the fields with your database schema.)
Configure change tracking functionality that enables incremental updates of your data.
Now Go back to Systems Administrations > Workspace > Data management
Click on > Data Entities
Now select the required Entity which you want to export, then click on Publish
Select the BYOD source name which was created using previous step and click publish
A Job Will schedule and Message will appear once job complete and a table will be created to targeted DB.
There is the option to set CHANGE TRACKING for each entity. If the change tracking is enabled for an entity, then you will be able to export incrementally. If you do not set this, then you can only do a full export. This feature must be set individually for each exporting entities
Create Data Job and Export
Now Go back to Systems Administrations > Workspace > Data management
Click on > Export Data
Now fill the required fields Like Name and Select Target data format as the BYOD Data source, Default refresh type should be incremental or Full push (based on the use case) then click on Add
Once you fill all the required fields, You are ready to export
After completion of data export you can verify on your targeted data source in Azure Database
The BYOD feature has the following limitations. There should be no active locks on your database during synchronization You can’t export composite entities into your own database Entities that don’t have unique keys can’t be exported by using incremental push
A good article on Debugging BYOD errors are described here and more detailed information can be found in Microsoft Docs
This blog entry describes the best practice for reading a message from Azure Service Bus in Logic App using Peek Lock Mechanism
Azure Integration: Azure Service Bus
The central capability of a message broker such as Service Bus is to accept messages into a queue or topic and hold them available for later retrieval. When the broker transfers a message to a client, the broker and client want to establish an understanding of whether the message has been successfully processed and can therefore be removed, or whether the message delivery or processing failed, and thus the message might have to be delivered again. There are two types of delivery
ReceiveAndDelete
Peek-Lock Message
The Receive-and-Delete mode tells the broker to consider all messages it sends to the receiving client as settled when sent. That means that the message is considered consumed as soon as the broker has put it onto the wire. If the message transfer fails, the message is lost. So this is not desirable for our use case, hence we will concentrate on the PeekLock option.
Peek-Lock (Non-Destructive Read) using Logic App
Logic App atomically retrieves and locks a message from a queue or subscription for processing. The message is now guaranteed not to be delivered to other receivers during the lock duration specified in the queue/subscription description. When the lock expires, the message becomes available to other receivers. In order to complete processing of the message, the receiver should issue a delete command with the lock ID received from this operation. To abandon processing of the message and unlock it for other receivers, an Unlock Message command should be issued, otherwise the lock duration period can expire. This operation should be used in applications that require At-Least-Once delivery assurances. If the receiver does not delete the message before processing succeeds, this ensures that another receiver is able to attempt processing after the lock duration period expires.
In Logic App we will use a variable to monitor the status of the Message. The message would have the following status. Then based on the message state, we need to perform the related actions (Handle Message Lock loop in the below image is the one performing these actions)
Processing: If the processing of the message takes a longer duration, then message lock needs to be renewed by Logic App. The default duration is 60 seconds.
Processed: Which means the message has been successfully processed by Logic App and then we need to inform the Service bus to complete the message on the queue
Error: Which means the message couldn’t be processed, hence we need to inform the ASB to abandon the message
When Message is processed successfully (i.e. end of the Try Processing the Message) block, we will set the status of the message state to processed. In Catch the Exception block, we will set the MessageState to Error. Please note that there is a link between Handle Message Lock and the rest of the operation. They coexist. We will use Until loop action from Logic App to monitor the message state and perform the relevant action. The loop ends when the message state is either Done[Processed] or Terminate[Error]
The following are the JSON for Logic App to Handle the lock correctly.
Recently there was a requirement to generate a flat file in Azure Logic App and deliver to Azure File Share with ANSI encoding as targeting application could only process ANSI encoding file. Much of cloud services assume that a text payload will be some form of UTF (Unicode) encoding. Azure Logic App Assumes it is UTF-8. Such that when your text payload is in a different encoding, such as a page code based encoding, the non-basic Latin characters gets mangled. This is particularly common with Flat Files because they integrate with ancient systems that often were not written with Unicode support.
My approach to solving the problem was to create an Azure Function App that converts the encoding from UTF-8 to windows-1252 (or to any other encoding) and then stores the file content in Azure File storage.
This seems to be an easy fix but the main problem was that Azure Logic App did not like the output from Azure Function App and threw an exception as shown below
BadRequest. Http request failed as the content was not valid: ‘Unable to translate bytes [E4] at index 83 from specified code page to Unicode.’.
The solution would be to use Base 64 encoding. Base 64 encoding ensures that none of the services in Azure integration going to assume a UTF encoding. Once you convert any non-UTF flat file such (as windows-1252) to UTF-8, then base 64 decodes it safely and process it with flat-file decode.
Azure Function App to change the encoding
The following azure function app can be used to convert the encoding of the text in base64 encoding
using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs;
using Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Host;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
namespace PnJ.FunctionApp.ConvertEncoding
{
public static class ChangeBase64Encoding
{
[FunctionName("ChangeBase64Encoding")]
public static async Task<object> Run([HttpTrigger(WebHookType = "genericJson")]HttpRequestMessage req, TraceWriter log)
{
log.Info($"Change base 64 Encoding function App was triggered");
Encoding inputEncoding = null;
string jsonContent = await req.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
dynamic data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(jsonContent);
if (data == null || data.text == null || data.encodingInput == null || data.encodingOutput == null)
{
return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new
{
error = "Please pass text/encodingOutput properties in the input Json object."
});
}
try
{
string encodingInput = data.encodingInput;
inputEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(name: encodingInput);
}
catch (ArgumentException)
{
return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new
{
error = "Input char set value '" + data.encodingInput + "' is not supported. Supported value are listed at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.encoding(v=vs.110).aspx."
});
}
Encoding encodingOutput;
try
{
string outputEncoding = data.encodingOutput;
encodingOutput = Encoding.GetEncoding(outputEncoding);
}
catch (ArgumentException)
{
return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new
{
error = "Output char set value '" + data.encodingOutput + "' is not supported. Supported value are listed at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.encoding(v=vs.110).aspx."
});
}
string input = data.text;
var outputBytes = Encoding.Convert(srcEncoding: inputEncoding, dstEncoding: encodingOutput, bytes: Convert.FromBase64String(input));
var response = req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
response.Content = new StringContent(content: JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new
{
text = Convert.ToBase64String(outputBytes)
}).ToString(), encoding: encodingOutput, mediaType: "application/json");
return response;
}
}
}
The function app receives the following input and encodes to the desired format, sends it back.
If the above approach doesn’t work, then please use the following approach, which gave me the desired results.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs;
using Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Extensions.Http;
using Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Host;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
namespace PnJ.FunctionApp.ConvertEncoding
{
public static class ChangeEncoding
{
[FunctionName("ChangeEncoding")]
public static async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Run([HttpTrigger(AuthorizationLevel.Function, "get", "post", Route = null)]HttpRequestMessage req, TraceWriter log)
{
log.Info($"Change Encoding function App was triggered was triggered!");
Encoding inputEncoding = null;
string jsonContent = await req.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
dynamic data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(jsonContent);
if (data == null || data.text == null || data.encodingInput == null || data.encodingOutput == null)
{
return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new
{
error = "Please pass text/encodingOutput properties in the input Json object."
});
}
try
{
string encodingInput = data.encodingInput;
inputEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(name: encodingInput);
}
catch (ArgumentException)
{
return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new
{
error = "Input char set value '" + data.encodingInput + "' is not supported. Supported value are listed at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.encoding(v=vs.110).aspx."
});
}
Encoding encodingOutput = null;
try
{
string outputEncoding = data.encodingOutput;
encodingOutput = Encoding.GetEncoding(outputEncoding);
}
catch (ArgumentException)
{
return req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new
{
error = "Output char set value '" + data.encodingOutput + "' is not supported. Supported value are listed at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.encoding(v=vs.110).aspx."
});
}
string input = data.text;
var outputBytes = Encoding.Convert(srcEncoding: inputEncoding, dstEncoding: encodingOutput, inputEncoding.GetBytes(input));
var response = req.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(outputBytes);
response.Content = new StreamContent(ms);
response.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/octet-stream");
return response;
}
}
}
This Blog describes the method of implementing Dynamics 365 UO’s Data Management Framework Recurring Integration Module using the Logic App. The blog provides a technical implementation of queuing and dequeuing of the Jobs using REST API of Dynamics 365 UO’s Recurring Integration Module. Dynamics 365 for Operation provides two primary sets of APIs, Recurring Integration APIs & Data Management Platform (DMF) package APIs, to support file-based integration scenarios. These APIs allow DMF data files as well as data projects to be imported and exported from Dynamics 365 for Operations. In this use scenario for Dynamics 365UO recurring integrations, data will be exported to a downstream system on a recurring schedule using Logic App and store that information in Blob Storage. It shows how to export a data package and save it to a Blob and notify the systems using the Azure service bus.
Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration API for Export (dequeue)
To return a data package that contains all the data entities that were defined in the data project, and that the client application can unzip and consume, use the following structure.
After the client downloads the data, an acknowledgment must be sent back to Finance and Operations, so that you can mark the data as received. In cases when there was no file uploaded to the blob, the dequeue API will return a response indicating as such.
The execution Id of the DMF Job has been returned to the client application, which can be used to monitor the progress of the execution of the Job.
The set up involves the following set and the API supports import/export of DMF Data projects
Authorization for the Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration API
The integration REST API uses the same OAuth 2.0 authentication model as the other service endpoints. Before the integrating client application can consume this endpoint, you must create an application ID in Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and give it appropriate permission to the application. When you create and enable a recurring job, you’re prompted to enter the Azure AD application ID that will interact with that recurring job. Therefore, be sure to make a note of the application ID.
Set up a Dynamics 365 UO data project and Dynamics 365 UO recurring data jobs
Create a data project
On the main dashboard, select the Data management tile to open the Data management workspace.
Select the Import or Export tile to create a new data project.
Enter a valid job name, data source, and entity name.
Download a data file for one or more entities. Make sure that each entity is added, and that no errors occur.
Target data format, select XML Element (Could use any format)
Select Save.
Create a Dynamics 365 UO recurring data job
On the Data project page, select Create a recurring data job.
Enter a valid name and a description for the recurring data job.
On the Set-up authorization policy tab, enter the application ID that was generated for your application, and mark it as enabled.
Expand the Advanced options tab and specify either File or Data package.
Select Set processing recurrence, and then, in the Define recurrence dialog box, set up a valid recurrence for your data job
Select OK, and then select Yes in the confirmation message box.
Download data from Dynamics 365 UO using recurring data jobs
You can use integration REST endpoints to integrate with the client, submit documents (import), or poll available documents for download (export). These endpoints support OAuth.
Dequeue the Dynamics 365 UO recurring Export Job
Dynamics 365 UO recurring data jobs API for Export (dequeue)
Make an HTTP POST call against the following URL and In the message body, you can then pass the data as a memory stream.
The following approach shows the way to dequeue the export Job to recurring integration. This approach uses data package-based export. Recurring integration supports both Data package export and the file export. The following parameters will be used
The D365UO environment
The Legal entity Name
The ID of the recurring Job which was created in the previous step
Name or description for the Export Job
Logic App and D365UO Export
The following section describes the method to create the Logic App for downloading Data Package from Recurring integration
Select Create a resource, then select Logic Apps and click on Create
Select the appropriate Resource Group and a Logic App Name and then click on Review+Create
On the Logic App page select the Logic app designer option and then select Blank Logic App
Search for Recurrence and select the Trigger.
Select the Interval and the Frequency (based on your demand, shorter the interval, the more expensive the integration will be)
Add Parameters for the Logic App “ContainerName“: { “value”: “The Blob Container to store exported files” }, “Dyn365fOClientId“: {“value”: “Client Id user for the authentication” }, “Dyn365foURL“: { “value”: “The Url of D3365UO enviornment xxxxxx.dynamics.com” }, “processQueueName“: { “value”: “The queue Name for The ExportJob” }, “ExportJobId“: { “value”: “The batch job execution ID” }
Add a New step, Seach for Key Vault and Add an Action called “Get Secret”
Add a Connection to the KeyVault, Enter the name of the Key Vault.
Add a new step and search for Until
Before you add value to control the loop, Add an action:
Search for HTTP. In Actions select HTTP action [ This is the action that will execute the export Batch Job that we have created earlier. Provide appropriate Name for the Action]
Fill in the Parameters The URI to the DMF dequeue endpoint Authentication Type: Active Directory oAuth Authority: https://login.windows.net/ Tenant: Name of the tenant Audience: Url of the D365UO environment (without the / in the end) Client ID: The client ID registered in Azure AD and authorized in DMF Recurring integration) Client Secret: The Application secret to connecting to Dynamics UO {The secret should be stored in KeyVault}
Now you can add a value to control the loop. On ‘Choose a value’ text field and select the OutputParameters Status Code is not equal to 200
Add a +New step and search for Condition
Now you can add a value to control the loop. On ‘Choose a value’ text field and select the OutputParameters Status Code is not equal to 200
Add a +New step and search for Until, Add the Until Action
Search for HTTP. In Actions select HTTP action [ This is the action that will download the Data Package File. Provide appropriate Name for the Action]
Fill in the Parameters Method: Get The URI would be the output from the Step 10 : replace(replace(body(‘HTTP’)[‘DownloadLocation’], ‘http:’, ‘https:’), ‘:80’, ‘:443’) Authentication Type: Active Directory oAuth Authority: https://login.windows.net/ Tenant: Name of the tenant Audience: Url of the D365UO environment (without the / in the end) Client ID: The client ID registered in Azure AD and authorized in DMF Recurring integration) Client Secret: The Application secret to connecting to Dynamics UO {The secret should be stored in KeyVault}
Now define the condition for Until Action. If the Value output parameters for the HTTP Status Code is equal to 200.
The false condition indicates that the package can’t be downloaded. We will send an email with the message. Add an action and search for Send an email (V2):
Sign in with your Outlook credentials and include the email information:
Add an action for the True condition. Search for Create A Blob
Add a connection to the Blob for the Create Blob connection
Then Add New action to Send a Message to Azure Service Bus.
Acknowledge The package download to Dynamics 365 UO Recurring integration using HTTP action. The HTTP code looks like below
Save the Logic App. The Flow should look like this
Run the Logic App
Go back to the D365FO portal and review the Job history in the Data management workspace. A new export job with the name ExpensesExport should be executed
Dynamics 365 for Unified Operations has evolved into purpose-built applications to help you manage business functions. This would mean that there would be integration with diverse systems. The blog describes integration patterns, integration scenarios, and best practices. There is a number of ways users can interact with the D365 UO. There are different ways to populate data to Dynamics 365 UO and retrieve data from D365 UO. In my personal opinion, the integration option can be decided based on the following three criteria
Retrieve data from D365 UO or Populate data to D365 UO
Real-Time interaction with D365UO or Batch processing of Data
Amount of Data which needs to be exchanged (Data volume)
Real-Time/Near Real-Time (Small Data volume)
Batch Job (Large Data Volume)
Retrieve Data from D365UO
oData Custom Web service Business Events Business Alert
Data Management Framework Recurring Integration
Populate Data to D365UO
oData Custom Web service
Data Management Framework Recurring Integration
Dynamics 365 UO Integration Patterns
Dynamics 365 UO Real-Time Integration Options
Dynamics 365 UO Bulk/Batch Processing
Dynamics 365 UO oData and REST
Dynamics 365 UO provides a REST API to interact with D365UO via Data Entities. The REST API provides a mechanism to interact in real-time or near real-time way to interact with the D365 UO. oData can be used to populate, retrieve, update, and delete (CRUD) data in Dynamics 365 UO. oData: Open Data Protocol (OData) is a standard protocol for consuming data exposed by Dynamics 365 for Operations. OData is a new Representational State Transfer (REST) based protocol for CRUD operations – C-Create, R-Read, U-Update, and D-Delete – that allows for integrating with Dynamics 365 for Operations. It is applied to all types of web technologies, such as HTTP and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). Data Entity: A data entity in D365 is an abstraction from the physical implementation of database tables. A data entity is a simplified de-normalized representation of underlying tables. A data entity represents a common data concept or functionality, (e.g. Vendors V2 where the details are stored in normalized relational tables) but all details are represented in one flat view in Vendor Details data entity. The data flow for interacting with Dynamics 365 UO using oData:
The Technical implementation of oData with Dynamics 365 UO can be found here
Dynamics 365 UO Business Event
The Dynamics 365 UO Business Events can send events/trigger/notification to external applications such as Azure Integrations, which can use this trigger to handle specific integration or business process scenarios. The Events existed in Finance and Operations were previously confined to use within Finance and Operations. The new capability provides a framework that will allow business processes in Finance and Operations to capture business events as business processes are executed and send the events to an external system or application. More about the business event can be found here
Business events provide a perfect integration scenario when an event occurs in D365FO and requires this information to be passed on to ThirdParty systems.
These business events can be used by
Azure Service Bus
Azure Logic Apps
Microsoft Flow
Azure Functions
HTTPS Trigger
Since these events happen in the context of business processes, they are called business events that enable business process integration. External business processes will subscribe to specific business events from Finance and Operations to get notified when they occur. The business events can also be consumed as “triggers” in the Finance and Operations connector. A custom or OOTB business event can trigger Azure Integration Services to process or forward the trigger to Third-party applications.
Dynamics 365 UO Custom webservice
In Microsoft Dynamics UO, a developer can create custom services to expose X++ functionality to external clients. Any existing X++ code can be exposed as a custom service by adding an attribute. D365 UO provides standard attributes that can be set on the data contract class and its members to automatically serialize and de-serialize data that is sent and received across a network connection. Many predefined types, such as collections and tables, are also supported. When a developer writes a custom service under a service group, the service group is always deployed on two endpoints:
SOAP endpoint
JSON endpoint
SOAP-based custom service
SOAP-based services remain the same as they were in Dynamics AX 2012. Key changes
All the service groups under the AOTService group node are automatically deployed.
All services that must be deployed must be part of a service group.
This feature enables X++ classes to be consumed as JSON services. In other words, the return data set is in JSON format. JSON, which stands for JavaScript Object Notation, is a compact, lightweight format that is commonly used to communicate data between the client and the server.
Data Management Framework: DMF is the new all-in-one concept introduced by Microsoft in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. It supports and manages all core data management related tasks. This enables asynchronous and high-performing data insertion and extraction scenarios. Here are some examples: Interactive file-based import/export, Recurring integrations (file, queue, and so on)
Data Package: Data Package is a simple .zip file that contains the source (import) or target data(export) itself . The zip file contains three files. The data file and the manifest files which contain metadata information of the Data Entity and the processing instructions for DMF.
Interacting with Dynamics 365 UO DMF REST API
In order to call the D365 F&O APIs, it is necessary to authenticate with a valid access token. The token can be retrieved from Azure Active Directory using a valid Application Id and secret key, which has access to the D365FO environment. The application ID and secret key are created by registering an application in Azure Active directory. Then the DMF REST API can be invoked.
Interaction using REST API to Export Data
The high level interaction of API calls to retieve the data package via REST API is shown below.
The detailed technical implemetation of Dynamics 365 UO DMF interaction using REST API has been descrbed here
Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration
Recurring integration does the following things:
It builds on data entities and the Data management framework.
It enables the exchange of documents or files between Finance and Operations and any third-party application or service.
It supports several document formats, source mapping, Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT), and filters.
Document/file exchange in several document formats
It uses secure REST application programming interfaces (APIs) and authorization mechanisms to receive data from, and send data back to, integration systems.
The complete flow to import job to recurring integration is shown below
Recurring Integration using REST API
The third party client applications authenticates to the Azure AD token issuance endpoint and requests an access token.
The Azure AD token issuance endpoint issues the access token.
The access token is used to authenticate to the D365FO DMF and initiate the import or Export Job. The endpoints are:
The following set of APIs is used to exchange data between the Dynamics 365 F&O Recurring Integrations client and Finance and Operations.
The detailed Technical implementation of Recurring integration can be found here
In one of my azure integration involving Dynamics 365, I had to send a null value when a field value is empty. The Dynamics 365 Actions for Update or Create a Record Action in the Logic App was always sending empty string (i.e. “”) instead of null value, which resulted in the integration failure. The sending null value fixed the integration, which was not possible to do via the Designer.
The expression was sending out null, but logic app converted to “”.
The expression for the field value resulted in the following error “Edm Object passed should have the options selected“
{
"status": 400,
"message": "--batchresponse_94b2278b-f1fd-4f65-94c9-c3640fba018b\r\nContent-Type: application/http\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: binary\r\n\r\nHTTP/1.1 204 No Content\r\nOData-Version: 4.0\r\n\r\n\r\n--batchresponse_94b2278b-f1fd-4f65-94c9-c3640fba018b\r\nContent-Type: application/http\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: binary\r\n\r\nHTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request\r\nREQ_ID: 64fce8db-bc4c-4653-92f7-8d976c4da1c7\r\nContent-Type: application/json; odata.metadata=minimal\r\nOData-Version: 4.0\r\n\r\n{\"error\":{\"code\":\"0x0\",\"message\":\"Edm Object passed should have the options selected. \",\"innererror\":{\"message\":\"Edm Object passed should have the options selected. \",\"type\":\"Microsoft.Crm.CrmHttpException\",\"stacktrace\":\" at Microsoft.Crm.Extensibility.OData.TypeConverters.OptionSetValueCollectionEdmTypeConverter.ConvertToCrmTypeInternal(String edmTypeValue, String operationName)\\r\\n
},
"source": "XXXXXXX.crm4.dynamics.com",
"errors": [],
"debugInfo": "clientRequestId: 2e965f81-110b-4f77-964c-057f4651c702"
}
Azure Integration with Dynamics 365: Use case
The use case was to create or update an Address entity in Dynamics 365 based on specific conditions. I used the standard Dynamics 365 action Update or Create a record action. There is a specific field that accepts a specific value or null but nor an empty value.
Azure Integration with Dynamics 365: Resolution
The Logic App adds curly braces {} in the expression value, the Logic App runtime will convert the null value to an empty string. The trick is to go to the code view of the Logic App designer, find the action and then remove the curly braces {} around the expression:
This blog describes the method to interact with the Dynamics 365 Unified Operation using oData. Dynamics 365 UO provides REST API to interact with Data via Data Entities.
oData: Open Data Protocol (OData) is a standard protocol for consuming data exposed by Dynamics 365 for Operations. OData is a new Representational State Transfer (REST) based protocol for CRUD operations – C-Create, R-Read, U-Update and D-Delete – that allows for integrating with Dynamics 365 for Operations. It is applied to all types of web technologies, such as HTTP and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).
Data Entity: A data entity in D365 is an abstraction from the physical implementation of database tables. A data entity is a simplified de-normalized representation of underlying tables. A data entity represents a common data concept or functionality, (e.g. Vendors V2 where the details are stored in normalized relational tables) but all details are represented in one flat view in Vendor Details data entity.
The data flow for querying data using oData:
Dynamics 365UO: oData Features
CRUD operations are handled through HTTP verb support for POST, PATCH, PUT, and DELETE.
The D365 UO for UO supports paging and maximum page size is 1,000.
Filter Options are: Equals, Not equals, Greater than, Greater than or equal, Less than, Less than or equal, And, Or, Not
D365 FO provides option to query data from Cross-company
URI Conventions for oData in Deatil has been described here
Querying Data Cross-Company
By default, OData returns only data that belongs to the users default company. To query the data from outside the users default company, specify the following keyword ?cross-company=true in the query. This option will return data from all companies that the user has access to.
In order to call the D365 UO oData EndPoints, it is necessary to authenticate with a valid access token. The token can be retrieved from Azure Active Directory using a valid Application Id and secret key, which has access to the D365FO environment. The application ID and secret key are created by registering an application in Azure Active directory.
Pre-requisite :
Register an application in Azure AD and Grant access to D365FO. The detailed steps are described here. Instead of Dynamics CRM select Dynamics ERP
Register the AAD application in D365FO
System administration > Setup > Azure Active Directory applications
Click “New” -> Enter APP-ID(created as part of the previous step), Meaningful name and User ID (the permission you would like to assign).
The client application authenticates to the Azure AD token issuance endpoint and requests an access token.
The Azure AD token issuance endpoint issues the access token.
The access token is used to authenticate to the D365FO DMF and initiate DMF Job.
Data from the DMF is returned to the third-party application.
Http Method: POST
Request URL: https://login.microsoftonline.com//oauth2/token
Parameters : grant_type: client_credentials [Specifies the requested grant type. In a Client Credentials Grant flow, the value must be client_credentials.]
client_id: Registered App ID of the AAD Application
client_secret: Enter a key of the registered application in AAD.
Resource: Enter the URL of the D365FO Url (e.g. https://dev-d365-fo-ultdeabc5b35da4fe25devaos.cloudax.dynamics.com)
The Resource URL should not have “/” in the end, othwerise you would always get access denied while accessing the target resource
C# Code
//Azure AAD Application settings
//The Tenant URL (use friendlyname or the TenantID
static string aadTenant = "https://login.windows.net/dev.onmicrosoft.com";
//The URL of the resource you would be accessing using the access token.Please ensure / is not there in the end of the URL
static string aadResource = "https://dev-testdevaos.sandbox.ax.dynamics.com";
//APplication ID . Store them securely / Encrypted config file or secure store
static string aadClientAppId = "GUID Of the Azure application";
//Application secret. Store them securely / Encrypted config file or secure store
static string aadClientAppSecret = "Secret of the Azure application";
/// Retrieves an authentication header from the service.The authentication header for the Web API call. private static string GetAuthenticationHeader()
{
//using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory;
AuthenticationContext authenticationContext = new AuthenticationContext(aadTenant);
var creadential = new ClientCredential(aadClientAppId, aadClientAppSecret);
AuthenticationResult authenticationResult = authenticationContext.AcquireTokenAsync(aadResource, creadential).Result;
return authenticationResult.AccessToken;
}
CRUD Operations on Data Entities
The following code shows the example for Creating, Reading, Updating and Deleting a PuchaseOrderHeader entity. More detailed information on oData can be found here
private static async void CRUDonPurchaseOrderHeader()
{
string authHeader = GetAuthenticationHeader();
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = new Uri(aadResource);
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", authHeader);
//Initiate the PurchaseOrderHeader object
var payload = new PurchaseOrderHeader()
{
PurchaseOrderNumber = "001-000234",
DataAreaId = "001",
OrderVendorAccountNumber = "000001",
DeliveryAddressCountryRegionId = "NL",
DeliveryAddressDescription = "Business Location",
AccountingDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
PurchaseOrderName = "JDE Professional",
RequestedDeliveryDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ExpectedStoreAvailableSalesDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ConfirmedDeliveryDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ExpectedStoreReceiptDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
FixedDueDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ExpectedCrossDockingDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z"
};
var stringPayload = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(payload);
var httpContent = new StringContent(stringPayload, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
var result = client.PostAsync("/data/PurchaseOrderHeadersV2", httpContent).Result;
string resultContent = await result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
JObject joResponse = JObject.Parse(resultContent);
//Get a Purchase Order
result = client.GetAsync("/data/PurchaseOrderHeadersV2?$filter=PurchaseOrderNumber eq '001-000234'").Result;
resultContent = await result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
joResponse = JObject.Parse(resultContent);
//Update the PurchaseOrderHeader object
payload = new PurchaseOrderHeader()
{
PurchaseOrderNumber = "001-000233",
DataAreaId = "001",
OrderVendorAccountNumber = "000001",
DeliveryAddressCountryRegionId = "NL",
DeliveryAddressDescription = "Business Location Address changed",
AccountingDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
PurchaseOrderName = "JDE Professional",
RequestedDeliveryDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ExpectedStoreAvailableSalesDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ConfirmedDeliveryDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ExpectedStoreReceiptDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
FixedDueDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z",
ExpectedCrossDockingDate = "2019-09-19T12:00:00Z"
};
stringPayload = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(payload);
httpContent = new StringContent(stringPayload, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
result = client.PatchAsync("/data/PurchaseOrderHeadersV2(dataAreaId='001',PurchaseOrderNumber='001-000234')", httpContent).Result;
//Delete the PurchaseOrderHeader object
result = client.DeleteAsync("/data/PurchaseOrderHeadersV2(dataAreaId='001',PurchaseOrderNumber='001-000234')").Result;
}
There are times the Azure integration components such as Logic Apps, function Apps, fail due to technical errors, functional errors or data errors. There should be a mechanism to monitor and pro-actively inform the technical owners or functional owners about these errors, to have a successful and reliable integration. This blog provides a mechanism for the following errors:
Monitoring solutions
Handling Functional or Data related Errors
Handling Technical Errors
Tracking the integration flow errors
Azure Integration: Monitoring using Logic App Management solution
Logic Apps Management monitoring solution leverage services in Azure to provide additional insight into the operation of a Logic App execution. This Monitoring solution collects Logic App execution log data and provides queries and views to analyze collected data.
The solution gives a more detailed view and visualization of all your logic apps with the Logic Apps Management Solution on Azure Operations Management Suite (OMS), which includes tracking of custom queries, success and failure graph trends, Power BI report generation and a timeline of your runs, actions, triggers, and failures.
The solution also lets Admins resubmit the Failed Logic App Runs
It enables the technical owner to export all the exceptions to analyze and identify the most common errors. Then Azure Integration owner can come up with remediation action and make the integration more reliable and robust.
The following diagram shows the Logic Management Solution. This shows the summary of the execution of Logic App Runs. It provides an option to see the Logic Apps run for different periods of time such as the last 24 hours, 48 hours, 7 days, 30 days.
Once you click on the diagram, which takes you to the detailed view of the Runs. It provides options to filter the run based on different options such as status, Logic App Name, Run Id, Execution time. It also provides an option to select Multiple Runs and re-submit the Logic App runs.
What is Log Analytics Workspace?
Log Analytics Workspace is a service which collects data from a set of different sources. These data are organized into tables created automatically. From that point and forward we can monitor, analyze, visualize and create alerts for that data.
The Agents send telemetry data, Logs from each Data source to Log Analytics service
Log Analytics service collects data and classifies the data into different tables
With several tools, the End User can monitor, analyze, create reports, dashboards, alerts based on the data.
The following diagram shows in high level to set up a Logic App Management solution in Azure Portal.
Create a Log Analytics WorkSpace to store the data.
Connect a Log Analytics workspace to Logic App Azure Subscription to Collect data regarding the Logic Execution Runs.
Add the Diagnostics settings in Logic App to send Logging to Log Analytics works space
After setting up diagnostics, connect the Diagnostic setting to the workspace to send the Logic App execution details
Add the Logic App Management Solution to Log Analytics Workspace. This would collect the data from Azure Logs and visualize the execution Details.
Azure Integration:Handling Functional or Data related Errors
There are times the Azure integration logic fails due to incorrect data on the source or target system. The errors arise due to functional error or data error and it will be ideal to forward these errors to functional leads to correct the data on the source or the target. These errors should be fixed either in the source or target system and re-submit the request again to ensure the successful execution of the integration logic. The approach is to analyze the most common data errors from the current production system and identify the places where most errors occur. Then implement a centralized exception handling mechanism. The best way to get this information is by using Azure Log Analytics. All the Logic App Actions which could potentially fail due to incorrect data will have an action to handle the failures. This action would forward the error messages to a central Logic app for handling the exception. The exception handling logic app would log these exceptions to Azure Activity Log for monitoring and optionally would send the mail to corresponding functional heads to correct the data.
The example of handling an exception while saving information to a third party application is shown below in the diagram. The failure action would call the central exception handling logic app and send the required information.
The information which needs to be sent can be defined based on the Azure Integration scenarios. I sent the following information, which then can be used to Log in to Log analytics and send emails to Functional or technical owners. 1. Detailed Error Message. This can be retreved using outputs(‘Previous Action Name’) 2. Error Message:This can be retreved using outputs(‘Previous Action Name’)[‘body’] 3. Input Message to the Previous action:This can be retrieved using body(‘Previous Action Name’) 4. Status code of the Previous Execution: outputs(‘Previous Action Name’)[‘StatusCode’]
The exception Handling action has been configured to run only when the previous execution has failed
The Configure Run after option provides the option to run only when the previous action has been failed. The following actions after the execution handling block need to be configured to Run after when the previous action is Successful or is skipped.
Azure Integration: Technical exception Handling
Once Azure Integration has been deployed, it is necessary to get notifications about failures or other possible problems. The Logic App lets users set up alerts. For example, you can create an alert that detects “when more than five runs fail in an hour”. This alerting capability is limited and needs to be set up per logic. There would need to send out actual error messages, apply some logic and formatting to exceptions. This is not supported by OOTB Alerting functionality. This can be achieved by querying the Azure Log Monitoring in the Logic App and apply the required templating / process logic to send the information. I use the following approach to get notification of the failures of all the Logic Apps and use single Logic APp to handle the exceptions.
I use the Query Azure Monitoring Log Actions from Logic Apps.
search Category == ‘WorkflowRuntime’ | where status_s == “Failed” | where Level == “Error”
Tracking Azure Integration Runs
Azure Logic Apps has some additional capabilities beyond the out-of-box capabilities for Tracking custom properties, these are called Tracked Properties. The tracked properties could be a vendor account in Dynamics 365 UO integration and or an account number in Dynamics 365 CE integration, which would help us to follow the end to end integration flow. These additional capabilities are unlocked by enabling diagnostics for a logic app and publishing the data to Log Analytics. In the Azure Logic App, from the Settings option within each action, there is a Tracked Properties setting where static or dynamic values can be included based upon Logic Apps Workflow Definition Language.
With a Log Analytics workspace configured, and diagnostics configured within our logic app, we will see diagnostic events emitted to Log Analytics. If the Tracked Properties are configured, then the next time we run our logic app, we will find our custom diagnostics included in our Log Analytics data.
This Blog describes the limitation of Dynamics 365 UO’s Data Management Framework in Parallel execution and how to get around it using Dynamics 365 UO’s Recurring Integration Module. The blog provides a technical implementation in .NET for queuing and dequeuing of the Jobs using REST API of Dynamics 365 UO’s Recurring Integration Module.
Use Case: Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration
Dynamics 365 UO DMF Import and export fails during parallel execution of the Job
Data Management framework works great when a large amount of data should be imported or exported from Dynamics 365 UO. The DMF REST API to import and export doesn’t work when third party applications queue Import and export Jobs in parallel. It results in an unexpected exception from DMF endpoints and failures in the DMF Data Job. The parallel import/export data jobs work for different entities and fail only when the job is for the same entity. E.g. We can import Vendors, Customers and General Journal in Parallel, but we cannot have parallel import of multiple jobs for same the entity.
DMF Parallel execution issue
The following exceptions were discovered during the import
XML is not in correct format and thus 0 General Journal records are inserted in staging.
Cannot edit a record in Entities for a processing group (DMFDefinitionGroupEntity).\nThe record has never been selected.
Cannot delete a record in Source (DMFDefinitionGroupEntityXMLFields).\nDeadlock, where one or more users have simultaneously locked the whole table or part of it.”,
Exception occurred while executing action ImportFromPackage on Entity DataManagementDefinitionGroup: BOX API can’t be used from non-interactive sessions
‘The record already exists’
“Cannot create a record in Source (DMFDefinitionGroupEntityXMLFields). Entity: General Journal, ACCOUNTINGDATE.\nDeadlock, where one or more users have simultaneously locked the whole table or part of it.”,
Resolution to the problem is to use the Recurring Integration D365UO module. The recurring integration provides
Queuing mechanism for Data Jobs (import/export)
The module will ensure the sequential execution of the Job.
The module provides opportunity to ordered execution of the Job
Recurring Integration
Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration
Recurring integration does the following things:
It builds on data entities and the Data management framework.
It enables the exchange of documents or files between Finance and Operations and any third-party application or service.
It supports several document formats, source mapping, Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT), and filters.
Document/file exchange in several document formats
It uses secure REST application programming interfaces (APIs) and authorization mechanisms to receive data from, and send data back to, integration systems.
The complete flow to import job to recurring integration is shown below
Recurring Integration using REST API
The third party client applications authenticates to the Azure AD token issuance endpoint and requests an access token.
The Azure AD token issuance endpoint issues the access token.
The access token is used to authenticate to the D365FO DMF and initiate the import or Export Job. The endpoints are:
The following set of APIs is used to exchange data between the Dynamics 365 F&O Recurring Integrations client and Finance and Operations.
Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration API for Import (enqueue)
In the message body, you can the pass the data as a memory stream.
To get the activity ID, on the Manage scheduled data jobs page, in the ID field, copy the globally unique identifier (GUID).
Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration API for Export (dequeue)
To return a data package that contains all the data entities that were defined in the data project, and that the client application can unzip and consume, use the following structure.
After the client downloads the data, an acknowledgment must be sent back to Finance and Operations, so that you can mark the data as received. In cases when there was no file uploaded to the blob, the dequeue API will return a response indicating as such.
The execution Id of the DMF Job has been returned to the client application, which can be used to monitor the progress of the execution of the Job.
The set up involves following set and the API supports import/export of DMF Data projects
The Recurring Int set up
Authorization for the Dynamics 365 UO Recurring Integration API
The integration REST API uses the same OAuth 2.0 authentication model as the other service endpoints. Before the integrating client application can consume this endpoint, you must create an application ID in Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and give it appropriate permission to the application. When you create and enable a recurring job, you’re prompted to enter the Azure AD application ID that will interact with that recurring job. Therefore, be sure to make a note of the application ID.
internal static class AuthManager
{
static string aadTenant = "https://login.windows.net/<<TenantName>>";
internal static string aadResource = "https://XXXXX.cloudax.dynamics.com";
static string aadClientAppId = "The client ID";
static string aadClientAppSecret = "The Client Secret";
/// <summary>
/// Retrieves an authentication header from the service.
/// </summary>
/// <returns>The authentication header for the Web API call.</returns>
internal static string GetAuthenticationHeader()
{
AuthenticationContext authenticationContext = new AuthenticationContext(aadTenant);
var creadential = new ClientCredential(aadClientAppId, aadClientAppSecret);
AuthenticationResult authenticationResult = authenticationContext.AcquireTokenAsync(aadResource, creadential).Result;
return authenticationResult.AccessToken;
}
}
Set up a Dynamics 365 UO data project and Dynamics 365 UO recurring data jobs
Create a data project
On the main dashboard, select the Data management tile to open the Data management workspace.
Select the Import or Export tile to create a new data project.
Enter a valid job name, data source, and entity name.
Upload a data file for one or more entities. Make sure that each entity is added, and that no errors occur.
Select Save.
Create a Dynamics 365 UO recurring data job
On the Data project page, select Create recurring data job.
Enter a valid name and a description for the recurring data job.
On the Set-up authorization policy tab, enter the application ID that was generated for your application, and mark it as enabled.
Expand Advanced options tab and specify either File or Data package.
Select Set processing recurrence, and then, in the Define recurrence dialog box, set up a valid recurrence for your data job
Select OK, and then select Yes in the confirmation message box.
Submitting data to Dynamics 365 UO recurring data jobs
You can use integration REST endpoints to integrate with the client, submit documents (import), or poll available documents for download (export). These endpoints support OAuth.
Queue the Dynamics 365 UO recurring Import Job
Dynamics 365 UO recurring data jobs API for import (enqueue)
Make an HTTP POST call against the following URL and In the message body, you can the pass the data as a memory stream.
The following code shows the way to queue the import Job to recurring integration. This approach uses data package-based import. Recurring integration supports both Data package import and the file import. The following parameters will be used
The D365UO environment
The Legal entity Name
The ID of the recurring Job which was created in the previous step
The entity name which needs to be imported
Name or description for the import Job
public static class RecurringIntegration
{
/// <summary>
/// Post request
/// </summary>
/// <param name="uri">Enqueue endpoint URI</param>
/// <param name="authenticationHeader">Authentication header</param>
/// <param name="bodyStream">Body stream</param>
/// <param name="message">ActivityMessage context</param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static async Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendPostRequestAsync(Uri uri, string authenticationHeader, Stream bodyStream, string externalCorrelationHeaderValue = null)
{
string externalidentifier = "x-ms-dyn-externalidentifier";
ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls |
SecurityProtocolType.Tls11 |
SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;
using (HttpClientHandler handler = new HttpClientHandler() { UseCookies = false })
{
using (HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient(handler))
{
httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", authenticationHeader);
// Add external correlation id header id specified and valid
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(externalCorrelationHeaderValue))
{
httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add(externalidentifier, externalCorrelationHeaderValue);
}
if (bodyStream != null)
{
using (StreamContent content = new StreamContent(bodyStream))
{
return await httpClient.PostAsync(uri, content);
}
}
}
}
return new HttpResponseMessage()
{
Content = new StringContent("Request failed at client.", Encoding.ASCII),
StatusCode = System.Net.HttpStatusCode.PreconditionFailed
};
}
/// <summary>
/// Get the Enqueue URI
/// </summary>
/// <returns>Enqueue URI</returns>
private static Uri GetEnqueueUri(string recurringJobId, string legalEntity, string entityName)
{
string enviornmentUrl = "https://XXXXXXX.cloudax.dynamics.com";
string enqueueUrl = "/api/connector/enqueue/";
//access the Connector API
UriBuilder enqueueUri = new UriBuilder(enviornmentUrl);
enqueueUri.Path = enqueueUrl + recurringJobId;
// Data package
string enqueueQuery = "entity=" + entityName;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(legalEntity))
{
enqueueQuery += "&company=" + legalEntity;
}
enqueueUri.Query = enqueueQuery;
return enqueueUri.Uri;
}
public static Stream Read(string fullFilePath)
{
if (File.Exists(fullFilePath))
{
return new FileStream(fullFilePath,
FileMode.Open,
FileAccess.Read,
FileShare.Read,
0x1000,
true);
}
return null;
}
/// <summary>
// Enqueue the Data package to Recurring integration
/// </summary>
/// <returns>Status</returns>
internal static async void QueueImport()
{
Stream stream = Read(@"C:\Temp\GL\General Journal.zip");
string authHeader = AuthManager.GetAuthenticationHeader();
Uri enqueueUri =GetEnqueueUri("<<ID of the recurring Job>>", "<<Legal Entity>>", "<<Entity Name>>");
string jobName = "The name of the Job";
HttpResponseMessage result = SendPostRequestAsync(enqueueUri, authHeader, stream, jobName).Result;
string resultContent = await result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
Console.WriteLine("Response is");
Console.WriteLine(resultContent);
}
}
This blog describes a method to use Azure Integration with Dynamics 365 FO Business Events. The Dynamics 365 FO Business Events can send events/trigger/notification to external applications such as Azure Integrations, which can use this trigger to handle specific integration or business process scenarios.
The Events existed in Finance and Operations were previously confined to use within Finance and Operations. The new capability provides a framework that will allow business processes in Finance and Operations to capture business events as business processes are executed and send the events to an external system or application.
Business events provides a perfect integration scenario when an event occurs in D365FO and requires this information to be passed on to ThirdParty systems.
These business event can be used by
Azure Service Bus
Azure Logic Apps
Microsoft Flow
Azure Functions
HTTPS Trigger
Since these events happen in the context of business processes, they are called business events that enable business process integration. External business processes will subscribe to specific business events from Finance and Operations to get notified when they occur. The business events can also be consumed as “triggers” in the Finance and Operations connector.
A Dynamics 365 FO Integrationusecase scenario
Use case: Trigger a Third party application when a Vendor Record is created
In high level what i am trying to achieve is shown below. A custom business event will be created to trigger logic app to forward the trigger to Third party application.
Creating a custom Dynamics 365 FO business event
In this demo I will create a new business event from scratch to show the steps involved in creating and consuming business event via Logic App. As a trigger data source, I will use Vendor Table (VendTable) as source of the business event. To create a custom business event, we would need following three artifacts.
BusinessEventsContract class
BusinessEventsBase class
A Trigger Class to send the business Event
More information on creating business event can be found here
BusinessEventContract Class
BusinessEventsContract Class creates the business data contract class. A business event contract class extends the BusinessEventsContract class. It defines and populates the payload of the business event. The process of implementing a business event contract involves extending the BusinessEventContract class, defining internal state, implementing an initialization method, implementing a static constructor method, and implementing parm methods to access the contract state.
/// <summary>
/// The data contract for the <c>VendorCreatedBusinessEvent</c>,business events.
/// </summary>
[DataContract]
public class DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract extends BusinessEventsContract
{
private VendAccount vendAccount;
/// <summary>
/// Initializes the field values.
/// </summary>
private void initialize(VendTable _vendTable)
{
vendAccount = _vendTable.AccountNum;
}
/// <summary>
/// Creates a <c>VendorCreatedBusinessEventContract</c> from a <c>VendTable</c> record.
/// </summary>
/// <param name = "_VendTable">A <c>VendTable</c> record.</param>
/// <returns>A <c>VendorCreatedBusinessEventContract</c>.</returns>
public static DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract newFromVendTable(VendTable _vendTable)
{
var contract = DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract::construct();
contract.initialize(_vendTable);
contract.parmVendAccount(_vendTable.AccountNum);
return contract;
}
[DataMember('AccountNumber'), BusinessEventsDataMember("@Dev:AccountNumber")]
public VendAccount parmVendAccount(VendAccount _vendAccount = vendAccount)
{
vendAccount = _vendAccount;
return vendAccount;
}
private void new()
{
}
public static DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract construct()
{
DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract retVal = new DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract();
return retVal;
}
}
BusinessEventsBase extension
The process of implementing an extension of the BusinessEventsBase class involves extending the BusinessEventsBase class, and implementing a static constructor method, a private new method, methods to maintain internal state, and the buildContract method.
[BusinessEvents(classStr(DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract),
"Dev:VendorCreatedEvent","Dev:VendorCreatedEventDescription",ModuleAxapta::Vendor)]
public final class DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent extends BusinessEventsBase
{
private VendTable vendTable;
private VendTable parmVendTable(VendTable _vendTable = vendTable)
{
vendTable = _vendTable;
return vendTable;
}
private void new()
{
super();
}
public static DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent construct()
{
DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent retVal = new DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent();
return retVal;
}
[Wrappable(true), Replaceable(true)]
public BusinessEventsContract buildContract()
{
return DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventContract::newFromVendTable(vendTable);
}
static public DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent newFromVendTable(VendTable _vendTable)
{
DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent businessEvent = DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent::construct();
businessEvent.parmVendTable(_vendTable);
return businessEvent;
}
}
Sending/Triggering a Dynamics 365 FO business event
The trigger class is responsible for triggering the business event. In my use case, i would like to trigger the business event after the creating on Vendor record in the vendTable. So I will be extending the “VendTable_onInserted” method to send the business event.
public static class DevVendorCreatedBusinessEventTrigger_Extension
{
/// <summary>
///Send the business event on vendor record creation.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender">Vendor Table</param>
/// <param name="e"></param>
[DataEventHandler(tableStr(VendTable), DataEventType::Inserted)]
public static void VendTable_onInserted(Common sender, DataEventArgs e)
{
VendTable vendTable = sender;
DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent businessEvent = DevVendorCreatedBusinessEvent::newFromVendTable(vendTable);
if(businessEvent)
{
businessEvent.send();
}
}
}
Activate the custom Dynamics 365 FO business event
The Business Event catalog doesnt get automatically refreshed. To refresh the Business Event catalog, go to System Administration -> Business Event Catalog -> Manage -> Rebuild business event catalog Once rebuild is complete, the new business event would be added to the list .
Activate the Business Event and assign the end point to the busiess event. Once it is activated, the business event should appear in the “Active events” tab.
Consume the Dynamics 365 FO business event in Logic App
The newly created Business event would appear as the Trigger in Logic App under D365 Fin and Ops Module.
Then the Logic app can be used to get the information about the vendor and forward it to the third party applications.
