Business Central REST API via JavaScript
I’ve just had the task to connect a new customer to one of our Node.JS webservices, in this case a payment notification service. So, payment providers like Adyen, Ingenico and Crefopay are constantly pushing some kind of payload (xml, json) against our service endpoint, and the service works like a proxy. It looks up and redirects the calls to the specific customers Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central instances. As BC now offers the fully featured REST API, I had to look for a simple way to connect it to this Node.JS driven service.
Snippet to connect to the Business Central REST API
In this little snippet, we fetch a specific company using the lightweight http library unirest. Don’t forget that Basic authentication is deprecated in cloud instances (you should use OAuth instead).
Read data
//Business Central REST API
var unirest = require('unirest');
//User credentials and endpoints stored in database
var clientId = "your_user";
var clientSecret = "your_api_password";
var hostName = "https://bc-docker:7048/BC/api/v1.0/";
var method = 'companies(name=\'CRONUS DE\')';
//Base64 conversion for authentication header
var authorizationBasic = Buffer.from(clientId + ':' + clientSecret).toString('base64')
var req = unirest('GET', hostName + method)
.headers({
'Authorization': 'Basic ' + authorizationBasic
})
.end(function (res) {
if (res.error) throw new Error(res.error);
console.log(res.raw_body);
});Update Data
When updating data, please don’t forget to include the ETag in the If-Match headers so that the system can check the consistency of the record. To receive the current ETag, you have to fetch the record you are looking for first.
//Business Central REST API
var unirest = require('unirest');
//User credentials and endpoints stored in database
var clientId = "your_user";
var clientSecret = "your_api_password";
var hostName = "https://bc-docker:7048/BC/api/v1.0/";
//Get variables from your system first
var companyId = "your_company_id";
var itemToUpdate = "12345678"; //The item to update
var ETag = "12345678_xyz"; //Get current ETag first and use it to update
//Item endpoint
var method = 'companies(companyId)/items(itemToUpdate)';
//Base64 conversion for authentication header
var authorizationBasic = Buffer.from(clientId + ':' + clientSecret).toString('base64')
var req = unirest('PUT', hostName + method)
.headers({
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
'If-Match': ETag,
'Authorization': 'Basic ' + authorizationBasic
})
.send(JSON.stringify({
"displayName": "ATHENS Schubladenelement 3"
}))
.end(function (res) {
if (res.error) throw new Error(res.error);
console.log(res.raw_body);
});Insert data
//Business Central REST API
var unirest = require('unirest');
//User credentials and endpoints stored in database
var clientId = "your_user";
var clientSecret = "your_api_password";
var hostName = "https://bc-docker:7048/BC/api/v1.0/";
//Get variables from your system first
var companyId = "your_company_id";
//Customer endpoint
var method = 'companies(companyId)/customers';
//Base64 conversion for authentication header
var authorizationBasic = Buffer.from(clientId + ':' + clientSecret).toString('base64')
var req = unirest('POST', hostName + method)
.headers({
'Authorization': 'Basic ' + authorizationBasic,
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
})
.send(JSON.stringify({
"displayName": "Coho Winery 1",
"type": "Company",
"address": {
"street": "192 Market Square",
"city": "Atlanta",
"state": "GA",
"countryLetterCode": "US",
"postalCode": "31772"
},
"email": "info@xyz.de"
}))
.end(function (res) {
if (res.error) throw new Error(res.error);
console.log(res.raw_body);
});
After setting up your API user you could start calling the Business Central REST API.
Using Postman to create snippets
Please have a look into Postman if you are looking for further snippets. Here you can model your requests in a very convenient and graphical way. The tool then spits out snippets for the respective query as needed.
Generating client code | Postman Learning Center
Jens Fritzsche
... is a technical consultant and developer at Comsol Unternehmenslösungen AG in Kronberg/Taunus. Major tasks are the architecture and implementation of complex, usually cross-system applications in and around Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Thank you!! After hours of searching this was the first example I could get to work!! Any chance you could also show how to do a POST request to insert data into my table from Node?
Hi Mike, i’ve updated the example with an PUT and POST for updating and inserting. I had no chance to test it but it might lead you in the right direction.