Last year I posted on using Postman. Things have changed since then and I need to update.

http://dynamicsnavax.blogspot.com/2017/05/dynamics-365-for-operation-web-service.html

There is a good article that Microsoft has written which I followed without any issues.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/data-entities/third-party-service-test#prerequisites

Below are some screenshot incase you are a visual person like me.

In the environment set ups. It should looks something like this.

When you run it, you should get a response.

Once you got the token. You are good to go with your messages.

Below is the same example from the blog post.

You run into any problems, click on the console icon at the bottom. Should give you a bit more information.

If you get a 401 error. It is usually a typo. Make sure you got the spaces and backslashes correct. One simple character can drive you crazy.

In the last post I did a quick run through on using Postman for testing Odata services.

This post I will give some tips on how you can write automated tests using Postman.

Tip 1 – Parameterise as much as you can

Parameterise using the environment settings. It will make your collection portable to other projects.

Below is an example where we have the environments settings parameterised.

You can see how I used it here. Now I can utilise the same thing across requests.

Tip 2 – Write test scripts

Test scripts are very easy to work with. This is for demonstration purpose only. I will explain how you can retrieve the values in the returned json.

Take the example here, where we use the “get customer” odata service. It returns a nested array with the values.

You can write a simple test script to retrieve values. In the below highlighted box you can see that I am logging it to the console. I am not really testing much here.

The console will return the below. 

One bonus tip here. Just click on the snippet codes to get sample code from Postman. Really helpful.

Tip 3 – Automated testing

Usually you will have dependent requests. The first request in our example retrieved the OAuth token and saved it in the environment settings. For the second request to work, it must get a fresh token to authenticate.

To run the collection, click on Runner at the top left of the main window.

Once the runner window opens up. Select you collection or folder. Then click on Run button at the bottom.

Once complete, you get your result.

If you are new to all this. I would recommend taking a look at postman blog on automated testing.

http://blog.getpostman.com/2014/03/07/writing-automated-tests-for-apis-using-postman/

I am using version 8 platform update 15. Since the POS development is locked out and extensions only is allowed. There are some limitations and a number of objects are not accessible.

I was trying to navigate to the customer search and allow the user to select a customer and return to the calling form. This was very challenging.

One possible solution I found is to use Global variables. I used the window object.

To do this, declare the window object as per screenshot. And then just set your object :

eg. window.MyVarName = WhatEverObject;

To get the value just invert it.

You can see how I have the customer object in debug.

Credit to one of my colleagues who suggested this solution.

Often you want to print a report via X++. One of the more common reports is the sales invoice.

Below is some code you could use to download a pdf copy. I am just picking the first invoice and printing to pdf.

Next few posts will be dependent on this. I will try to build up the scenario.

    public static void printSalesInvoice()
    {
        CustInvoiceJour         custInvoiceJour;

        select firstonly custInvoiceJour
            where custInvoiceJour.SalesId != '';

        if (custInvoiceJour)
        {
            str ext = SRSPrintDestinationSettings::findFileNameType(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF, SRSImageFileFormat::BMP);            
            PrintMgmtReportFormatName printMgmtReportFormatName = PrintMgmtDocType::construct(PrintMgmtDocumentType::SalesOrderInvoice).getDefaultReportFormat();

            SalesInvoiceContract salesInvoiceContract = new SalesInvoiceContract();
            salesInvoiceContract.parmRecordId(custInvoiceJour.RecId);

            SrsReportRunController  srsReportRunController = new SrsReportRunController();
            srsReportRunController.parmReportName(printMgmtReportFormatName);
            srsReportRunController.parmExecutionMode(SysOperationExecutionMode::Synchronous);
            srsReportRunController.parmShowDialog(false);
            srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmRdpContract(salesInvoiceContract);

            SRSPrintDestinationSettings printerSettings = srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings();
            printerSettings.printMediumType(SRSPrintMediumType::File);
            printerSettings.fileFormat(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF);
            printerSettings.parmFileName(custInvoiceJour.InvoiceId + ext);
            printerSettings.overwriteFile(true);

            srsReportRunController.startOperation();
        }
    }

In the last post I showed how to print the sales invoice as a pdf. In this post we will do the same but generate a byte array of the pdf report.

I tried to make the code as readable as possible and hopefully can use it on other reports..

    public static str printSalesInvoiceBase64Str(SalesInvoiceId _salesInvoiceId)
    {
        str                     ret;
        CustInvoiceJour         custInvoiceJour;

        select firstonly custInvoiceJour
            where custInvoiceJour.InvoiceId == _salesInvoiceId;

        if (custInvoiceJour)
        {       
            str ext = SRSPrintDestinationSettings::findFileNameType(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF, SRSImageFileFormat::BMP);
            PrintMgmtReportFormatName printMgmtReportFormatName = PrintMgmtDocType::construct(PrintMgmtDocumentType::SalesOrderInvoice).getDefaultReportFormat();     

            SalesInvoiceContract salesInvoiceContract = new SalesInvoiceContract();
            salesInvoiceContract.parmRecordId(custInvoiceJour.RecId);            

            SrsReportRunController  srsReportRunController = new SrsReportRunController();
            srsReportRunController.parmReportName(printMgmtReportFormatName);
            srsReportRunController.parmExecutionMode(SysOperationExecutionMode::Synchronous);
            srsReportRunController.parmShowDialog(false);            
            srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmRdpContract(salesInvoiceContract);
            srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmReportExecutionInfo(new SRSReportExecutionInfo());
            srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmReportServerConfig(SRSConfiguration::getDefaultServerConfiguration());

            SRSPrintDestinationSettings printerSettings = srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings();
            printerSettings.printMediumType(SRSPrintMediumType::File);
            printerSettings.fileFormat(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF);        
            printerSettings.parmFileName(custInvoiceJour.InvoiceId + ext);
            printerSettings.overwriteFile(true);

            SRSReportRunService srsReportRunService = new SrsReportRunService();
            srsReportRunService.getReportDataContract(srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmReportName());
            srsReportRunService.preRunReport(srsReportRunController.parmReportContract());
            Map reportParametersMap = srsReportRunService.createParamMapFromContract(srsReportRunController.parmReportContract());
            Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Framework.Reporting.Shared.ReportingService.ParameterValue[]  parameterValueArray = SrsReportRunUtil::getParameterValueArray(reportParametersMap);

            SRSProxy srsProxy = SRSProxy::constructWithConfiguration(srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmReportServerConfig());

            System.Byte[] reportBytes = srsproxy.renderReportToByteArray(srsReportRunController.parmreportcontract().parmreportpath(),
                                            parameterValueArray,
                                            printerSettings.fileFormat(),
                                            printerSettings.deviceinfo());

            if (reportBytes)
            {
                using (System.IO.MemoryStream memoryStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream(reportBytes))
                {
                    ret = System.Convert::ToBase64String(memoryStream.ToArray());
                }
            }
        }

        return ret;
    }

Printing the byte array string as an info log looks like this.

To test the encoding and decoding, I have used online tools like this:

https://www.freeformatter.com/base64-encoder.html

Other sources for your reference:

https://meritsolutions.com/render-report-memory-stream-d365-aka-ax7/

https://d365technext.blogspot.com/2018/07/email-ssrs-report-as-attachment-d365fo.html

I will continue this series of posts to some exciting capabilities. Until next time, enjoy.

I will start by pointing you to a good article Andreas Hofmann from Microsoft has written. It steps you through what you need to extend a transactional table in the Retail Channel and bring that back to HQ via the P Job.

https://dynamicsnotes.com/extending-a-transactional-retail-channel-table-with-additional-data-hq-x-table-extension-cdx-extension-table-crt-data-service/

Now to summerise the issue I faced recently (being a retail rookie).

Following the blog post I created a custom Int64 field on the RetailTransactionSalesTrans. However, when I ran the P job it failed with this error.

“Failed to convert parameter value from a String to a Int64”

I did some investigation by trying to find out what it is actually doing. Essentially the job will do an outer join to your custom extension table. Even though your custom field is 0 by default. You won’t be creating an extension record for every single transaction record. The p job will do an outer join between RetailTransactionSalesTrans to your custom CustomRetailTransSalesTrans, you will notice some blanks in your file that is coming to HQ.

See figure below what the file looks like.

Remember also, that the sync happens by downloading and uploading flat files. That is why you have it trying to convert from string to int64. Hence, the error.

You can see the files by going to the Upload sessions and downloading the zip file.

As a colleague told me today. The advice is, use a string and treat it as a string from Channel to HQ.

Earlier this month I posted on how to print a report as a byte array. I will do the same but using an alternative method. I will use the print archive instead.

You need to create an extension class for the SRSPrintArchiveContract class to add a parm method for the RecId.

[ExtensionOf(classStr(SRSPrintArchiveContract))]
final class SRSPrintArchiveContract_NAVAX_Extension
{
    public RefRecId    navaxPrintJobHeaderRecId;

    public RefRecId parmNAVAXPrintJobHeaderRecId(RefRecId _navaxPrintJobHeaderRecId = navaxPrintJobHeaderRecId)
    {
        navaxPrintJobHeaderRecId = _navaxPrintJobHeaderRecId;
        return navaxPrintJobHeaderRecId;
    }

    public RecId savePrintArchiveDetails(container binData)
    {
        RecId recId = next savePrintArchiveDetails(binData);

        this.parmNAVAXPrintJobHeaderRecId(recId);

        return recId;
    }

}

This is the alternative method I wrote.

    public static str printSalesInvoiceBase64StrV2(SalesInvoiceId _salesInvoiceId)
    {
        str                     ret;
        CustInvoiceJour         custInvoiceJour;

        select firstonly custInvoiceJour
            where custInvoiceJour.InvoiceId == _salesInvoiceId;

        if (custInvoiceJour)
        {
            str ext = SRSPrintDestinationSettings::findFileNameType(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF, SRSImageFileFormat::BMP);
            PrintMgmtReportFormatName printMgmtReportFormatName = PrintMgmtDocType::construct(PrintMgmtDocumentType::SalesOrderInvoice).getDefaultReportFormat();

            SalesInvoiceContract salesInvoiceContract = new SalesInvoiceContract();
            salesInvoiceContract.parmRecordId(custInvoiceJour.RecId);

            SrsReportRunController  srsReportRunController = new SrsReportRunController();
            srsReportRunController.parmReportName(printMgmtReportFormatName);
            srsReportRunController.parmExecutionMode(SysOperationExecutionMode::Synchronous);
            srsReportRunController.parmShowDialog(false);
            srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmRdpContract(salesInvoiceContract);

            SRSPrintDestinationSettings printerSettings = srsReportRunController.parmReportContract().parmPrintSettings();
            printerSettings.printMediumType(SRSPrintMediumType::Archive);
            printerSettings.fileFormat(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF);
            printerSettings.parmFileName(custInvoiceJour.InvoiceId + ext);
            printerSettings.overwriteFile(true);

            srsReportRunController.startOperation();

            RefRecId printJobHeaderRecId = printerSettings.parmSRSPrintArchiveContract().parmNAVAXPrintJobHeaderRecId();

            if (printJobHeaderRecId)
            {
                DocuRef        docuRef;

                select firstonly docuRef
                    where docuRef.RefRecId == printJobHeaderRecId && 
                        docuRef.ActualCompanyId == curExt();

                BinData binData = new BinData();
                binData.setData(DocumentManagement::getAttachmentAsContainer(docuRef));
                ret = binData.base64Encode();
            }
        }

        return ret;
    }

Note that it will pop up with an info log saying it got sent to print archive.

If you navigate to the print archive, you will see the record.

I don’t mind either way. The first method looks messy with calling some dlls like the SRSProxy etc.

The second method adds overhead by sending to the print archive table. Over time, some cleaning up has go on here.

Sending a message to Azure Service Bus is really simple in FinOps.

Below is the job I wrote to send a message to the service bus. It takes a connection string and a queue name for connecting. The message string and key value pair list can be supplied to the properties.

    static str connectionString = 'Endpoint=sb://navaxservicebus.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=RootManageSharedAccessKey;SharedAccessKey=h5KwXSEFIHxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
    static str queueName = 'navaxqueue';

    /// <summary>
    /// Runs the class with the specified arguments.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name = "_args">The specified arguments.</param>
    public static void main(Args _args)
    {
        if (connectionString && queueName)
        {
            Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging.QueueClient queueClient = Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging.QueueClient::CreateFromConnectionString(connectionString, queueName);
            Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging.BrokeredMessage brokeredMessage = new Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging.BrokeredMessage("My Message");

            var properties = brokeredMessage.Properties;

            properties.Add("MyKey1", "MyValue1");
            properties.Add("MyKey2", "MyValue2");

            queueClient.Send(brokeredMessage);
        }
    }

Using Service Bus Explorer you can see the result.

At the moment Microsoft is working on event based triggers. One of the possible solutions they presented was writing to the service bus. Looking forward to it.

I took inspiration from one of the standard classes I noticed in in 8PU15. It subscribes to the insert/delete of a user record to send the user detail to a service bus. The big bonus is that service bus assembles are included on the machine. I won’t dive any deeper into this class in this blog post.

I am usually doing this from the development environment. However, I was debugging a customer environment where I only had access to the front end. I had a table that only gave me the RefTableId. I needed to find out the table that record related to.

I used SysTableIdView from table browser. Here is the link.

http://usnconeboxax1aos.cloud.onebox.dynamics.com/?cmp=usmf&mi=SysTableBrowser&TableName=SysTableIdView

In this post I will talk about sending a file to a temporary blob storage. A little warning before I get into it.

This is using the Microsoft’s blob storage that is provisioned for us. I haven’t given it a lot of thought on how it would behave in production. Take it at your own risk.

Lets start by looking back on a couple of posts last month on printing a report to a byte array.

http://dynamicsnavax.blogspot.com/2018/09/print-report-as-byte-array-via-x-in.html

http://dynamicsnavax.blogspot.com/2018/09/alternate-way-to-print-report-as-byte.html

You can use those sample pieces of code to get a report as a stream and send it to the below code.

if (stream)
{
    str fileName = 'myfile';
    str contentType = 'application/pdf';
    str fileExtension = SRSPrintDestinationSettings::findFileNameType(SRSReportFileFormat::PDF, SRSImageFileFormat::BMP);

    FileUploadTemporaryStorageStrategy fileUploadStrategy = new FileUploadTemporaryStorageStrategy();
    FileUploadTemporaryStorageResult fileUploadResult = fileUploadStrategy.uploadFile(stream, fileName + fileExtension, contentType , fileExtension);

    if (fileUploadResult == null || !fileUploadResult.getUploadStatus())
    {
        warning("@ApplicationPlatform:FileUploadFailed");
    }
    else
    {
        downloadUrl = fileUploadResult.getDownloadUrl();
        if (downloadUrl == "")
        {
            throw Exception::Error;
        }
    }
}

A download URL will be generated for you. The URL is going to be public and with an expiration (15 minutes I believe).

Below is an error if you try to access it after the expiration period.

Respect to all those POS developers. It really requires some dedication and focus to be a POS developer. This is an example of something I would have not figured out without my colleagues.

We were working on a development project and we struggled to make sense out of the error.

The error we got was complaining about the a method to validate the Unit of measure and Quantity. I was sure the object was not null and I had passed the right thing to it. Unit of measure and quantity fields were populated correctly. The modification was overriding the price.

After many hours over the course a few days we struggled. A colleague suggested to use .NET reflector (this is where you need an experienced retail developer). Using this tool, I was able to make sense of the problem.

Below are the steps to use .NET reflector.

1. Download .NET reflector

https://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet-development/reflector/

2. Install following wizard. You can use the trial for 14 days or just active it with your serial number

When you install – I would recommend both the desktop and the visual studio extension

3. Select the assembly to debug. There are a couple of ways you can do that.

Select using the .NET Reflector > Generate PDBs (this will pop up a dialog to select the assembly)

Alternatively, from your solution explorer. Select the dll that is referenced and click on Enable Debugging.

4. This will launch the object browser.

Navigate to the method that caused the error. Then right click, Go to Decompiled Definition

5. I put a breakpoint and run through the process.

What I found was that it code used the salesTransaction object rather than the cartLine to get the unit of measure. Causing a cryptic error about unit of measure/quantity. In other words, I needed to create the cart line and save it to commit it to the salesTransaction first. Then after that process is finished, I can then override the price. i.e. 2 steps rather than trying to it all in one process.

I hope I don’t get in trouble of advising people to use .NET reflector by blogging here. I just don’t see how else I would have figure this thing out.

Microsoft Flow is a simple and cost effective way of integrating. In this post I will walk through how to use Flow for recurring file integration. The most common scenario I can think of is the general journal import.

First, I would recommend reading Microsoft article on recurring integration.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/data-entities/recurring-integrations

Solution below shows you how to use Microsoft Flow to read from OneDrive for Business and import to FinOps. The exact same thing can be done using Logic Apps for a more enterprise managed solution.

Lets start by setting up our folder structure to drop our general journal files in. Create four folders like so:

• inbound– drop the files here to be processed
• processing– Flow will move the file here from the inbound folder while executing
• success– Flow will move it here when the file has successfully been imported and processed
• error– Flow will move it here if the file fails to process for any reason

Now in Microsoft Flow designer, place a “When a file is created” and select the inbound folder.

In the next step, I used “Initialize variables” to be able to quickly change settings later in the flow. Otherwise, it can get messy to maintain and move around.

You might ask why I used an Object type rather than a String. In a string, I can set a single variable only. However, with the object I used a json string which allows me to set up multiple variables. (Let me know if this can be in a better way)

I parsed the json string. You can do this easily by copying the json string from above. Then click “Use sample payload to generate schema” to paste it in. It will generate the schema for you.

Next two steps is moving the file from inbound folder to processing folder. However OneDrive for Business doesn't have a Move action. I had to use a Create and Delete action as two steps. If you are using OneDrive for personal you will see a Move file action.

Once its moved, I use “Get file content” action to read the file.

Next, I used an HTTP POST action to send to the enqueue the file. I use the variables that were initialized earlier.

In the header I am setting the external identifier as the name of the file. This is done so in FinOps we can identify the job by the name.

This is what the result looks like in FinOps.

We are done sending the file to FinOps. The next steps are doing some cleaning of the file by moving to the success or error folder. Or you can email someone when a file is process or it errors out. You can get fancy.

However, I will show an example what you can do. Below I check every minute for 60 minutes if the job has been processed in FinOps. You can change the interval.

I added a “Do until” action. This is a loop that executes at an interval for a time limit.

The advanced query from the above is pasted below for your convenience. Its just doing an “or” condition. It checks if it is in any of these states.

@or(
      equals(body('HTTP_2')?['DataJobStatus']?['DataJobState'], 'Processed'),
      equals(body('HTTP_2')?['DataJobStatus']?['DataJobState'], 'ProcessedWithErrors'),
      equals(body('HTTP_2')?['DataJobStatus']?['DataJobState'], 'PostProcessingError'),
      equals(body('HTTP_2')?['DataJobStatus']?['DataJobState'], 'PreProcessingError')
    )

Initially it gets Queued, In Process and will go to Processed if it is successful.

All the statuses are listed here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/data-entities/recurring-integrations

Next, I added a Condition to check the job status. If it is Processed, then I know it is successful. I can then move the file to the success folder. Otherwise, to the error folder.

I will stop here as the next few stops are pretty much a repeat of moving a file in OneDrive.

Why don’t you take it to the next level and check out Ludwig’s blog post on automating the posting of the general journal.

https://dynamicsax-fico.com/2016/08/17/automatic-posting-of-journals/

Below is a screenshot of the record info. You can see the Entity field contains the string I passed via the enqueue URL.

Sounds pretty simple but hopefully helps someone out there.

1. Both methods use a polling architecture.
2. Both methods produce a zip file which you have to extract
3. Both methods require that you make a second call to check the status or acknowledge the download

How it works:

Create an export in the Data management workspace with the following:

• Data project operation type = Export
• Project category = Integration

I put these filter conditions so that not all exports cause a business event to trigger.

Just schedule your export to run on a regular basis with as an incremental export.

The export will generate a payload that looks like this.


The main fields you need are the DownloadURL and the EntityName. The downloadURL is formed when the event fires. By default it is valid for 1 hour. Think about it when using it in production.

Below is how I am using it in Flow.
The Business Event fires to Flow. I read the JSON payload and check on the EntityName is equal to “Customer groups”. Then I use an HTTP request with the DownloadURL to get the file.


You might be wondering how I parse a JSON file using the DownloadURL. :-) You will have to wait till next blog post.

Setup

• File format = XML
• XML Style = Attribute
• Root element = Document (I left this as default)

Process