Custom Inbound AIF Service in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Overview

Application Integration Framework (AIF) services are used to communicate with external systems or applications. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 has the following types of services:

1. Document services
2. Custom services
3. System services

An AIF service can be Inbound or Outbound. An Inbound service is used when you want to send data to an external system and Outbound services are used when you want to retrieve data. This tutorial will guide you in creating Custom Inbound AIF services in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. Custom services are used when:

1. The complexity of the entities is relatively low.
2. When you want to have full control of the service contract.
3. When data contracts needs to be shared with different entities.

Pre-requisites

1. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
2. AIF services must be installed and configured on IIS

Important Concepts

1. Service operation

   Service operations are class methods that expose any business logic in a service. To define a service operation, add the SysEntryPointAttribute attribute at the top of a method. Any existing method can be converted to a service operation by adding this attribute at the beginning of the method. 
   &absp;
   Note: The service operation name cannot include Create, Find, Update or Delete. These names are reserved to be used by AIF Document services. AX will make an exception when they are called from a client.

2. SysEntryPointAttribute

   SysEntryPointAttribute defines the authorization checks that will be performed when a method is called from the server. This attribute must be set on all the service operations. If the value is “true”, it means that authorization checks will be performed for all the tables accessed in the method and if set to “false”, no authorization checks will be performed.

3. AifCollectionTypeAttribute

   AifCollectionTypeAttribute is used when you want to use a collection as a return type or in a parameter of a service operation. This attribute defines the type of data a collection contains.

Scenario

As part of this tutorial the service will return the list of customer names in Dynamics AX.

Steps

1. First we will create a new class which will contain Service operations.


2. Open AOT. Go to Classes and create a new class. Let’s name it CustomerServiceDemo.


3. Set the RunOn property of the class to Server. This will make sure the class always executes on the server.
 
 
4. Add a new method and name it as getCustomerNameList. This method will query customers’ names and return a Type list string. Write the following code in the method:
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[SysEntryPointAttribute(true), AifCollectionTypeAttribute('return', Types::String)] //return denotes the parameter type and String specifies the type of data the collection will hold public List getCustomerNameList() {           CustTable       custTable;         List list = new List(Types::String);              //select all customers     while select * from custTable             {         //add customer name in the list         list.addEnd(custTable.name());     }          return list; }

5. The SysEntryPointAttribute tells AX that this method is a service operation method.


6. Now we will create a new service and add the above created service operation to it.


7. Go to Services, right click and select New Service.



8. Name it as CustomerServiceDemo.


9. Open the properties of the newly created service and select the CustomerServiceDemo class in the Class field.



10. Now expand the CustomerServiceDemo service node and add a new Operation by right clicking on Operations and selecting Add Operation.



11. All service operations present in the class will be listed. Select the getCustomerNameList service operation by checking the Add field in the grid and press OK.



12. The next step is to create a service group and deploy the service to the Inbound Port.


13. Go to Service Groups, right click and select New Service group.



14. Name it as CustomerServiceDemoGroup.


15. Set the AutoDeploy to Yes (Service will start automatically when AOS is started) and set the Description asCustomer name service.



16. Right click the newly created service group and select New Service Node Reference.



17. In the newly created service node, set the Service property to CustomerServiceDemo. The Name property will automatically default to the Service name.



18. Now right click the service group and select Deploy Service Group.



19. A success message will appear if the service group is successfully deployed.


20. To verify it, go to System administration à Setup à Services and Application Integration Framework à Inbound ports.


21. The Service group name CustomerServiceDemoGroup will appear here as Port name with a green check mark. This shows that service group is deployed and active. If a red ‘x’ is appearing, select Activate from the action pane to activate the port.



22. The WSDL URI is the URL of the service which can be used by external systems to access the service.


23. To test whether the service is running properly, open the Visual Studio Command Prompt by going to All Programsà Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 à Visual Studio Tools à Visual Studio Command Prompt.


24. Write wcftestclient and press enter. WCF Test Client will open.


25. Now, go to File àAdd Service.



26. In the Add Service dialog box, paste the WSDL URI of the port and press OK.



27. The WCF Test Client will open the service with the list of operations available.


28. Double click the getCustomerNameList. It will open the operation details in the right hand side pane.



29. Click the Invoke button. The result of the service will appear in the Response pane.



30. Pat yourself on the back. You are finished!