ERPConnect Services provides two Web services in the SharePoint folder _vti_bin:

  • ERPConnectService.svc (SOAP Web services)
  • ERPConnectServiceRest.svc (REST Web services)

You can access the Web services using JavaScript or jQuery within a SharePoint application or an application page.

REST
For the development and use of ERPConnect Services with JavaScript or jQuery, the REST based Web service ERPConnectServiceRest.svc is being offered. Using the JavaScript library jQuery, you can create AJAX queries with little effort. The REST service provides access to the objects Function Module, Table and XtractQL. The operations will return JSON or XML formatted data.

IMPORTANT: For desktop applications you should always use the client assemblies that are delivered with ERPConnect Services. Only the client libraries will ensure the complete functionality and correct usage of ERPConnect Services.

HTTP POST
The REST operations are supported with the HTTP method POST.

REST operations
The following list shows the REST operations that are provided with ERPConnect Services:

  • BeginConnectionScope
  • EndConnectionScope
  • ExecuteXQL
  • CreateFunction
  • ExecuteFunction
  • ExecuteTableQuery

The REST API is defined as following and gives an overview about the functions:

Click to open C# example. 
[ServiceContract(Namespace = ERPConnectServiceNamespaces.Contract)]
public interface IERPConnectServiceWSRest
{
  #region Connection Scope Operations
 
  // NOTE: WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest is not supported for single parameters (see JsonOperationFormatterBehavior)
  [OperationContract]
  [WebInvoke(RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  ERPExecutionInfo BeginConnectionScope(string applicationName);
 
  [OperationContract]
  [WebInvoke(BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  ERPExecutionInfo EndConnectionScope(string applicationName, ERPConnectionScope connectionScope);
 
  #endregion
 
  #region XQL Operations
 
  [OperationContract]
  [WebInvoke(BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  ERPExecutionInfo ExecuteXQL(string applicationName, ERPConnectionScope connectionScope, string query);
 
  #endregion
 
  #region Function Module Operations
 
  [OperationContract]
  [WebInvoke(BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  ERPExecutionInfo CreateFunction(string applicationName, ERPConnectionScope connectionScope, string name);
 
  [OperationContract]
  [WebInvoke(BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  ERPExecutionInfo ExecuteFunction(string applicationName, ERPConnectionScope connectionScope, ERPFunction function);
 
  #endregion
 
  #region Table Operations
 
  [OperationContract]
  [WebInvoke(BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
  ERPExecutionInfo ExecuteTableQuery(string applicationName, ERPConnectionScope connectionScope, string tableName, ExecuteTableQuerySettings settings);
 
  #endregion
}

The ExecuteTableQuerySettings class has the following properties:

class Execute TableQuerySettings in C#. 
region class ExecuteTableQuerySettings
public class ExecuteTableQuerySettings
    {
        public int RowSkip { get; set; }
        public int RowCount { get; set; }
        public string WhereClause { get; set; }
        public string OrderClause { get; set; }
        public string CustomFunction { get; set; }
        public bool UseMultibyteExtraction { get; set; }
        public ERPCollection Fields { get; set; }     
    }
#endregion

JavaScript library JSON2.js
The JavaScript library JSON2.js is useful to convert JavaScript objects to JSON strings. The library is available for download at www.json.org. The code examples in this chapter make use of the function JSON.stringify which is provided by the library.

JSON is an acronym for JavaScript Object Notation and is a lightweight data exchange format. For the development with jQuery and the use of AJAX, the web debugger tool Fiddler2 can be very useful.

SOAP Web Service

JavaScript Library

REST without tEcs