Posts in Category: web api

Eliminate Lazy Error Handling

Here is an error I received the other day…

“Authentication Failure”

Here is another…

“Format of the initialization string does not conform to specification starting at index 0, without any typo in connectionString”

And finally my favourite…

“The entity cannot be updated because it is read-only.”

They are all from different applications and implementations and have been my life for the past two days as I tried to figure them out and wasted an insane amount of time trying to figure out what they related to and what I had to do to resolve them.

Here were the resolutions (in order)…

“Multi-Factor authentication is not supported here.”

“You need to enter the string in a special way, but we won’t tell you how.”

“It’s not that the entity was read-only, it’s that a function was trying to modify it while

Read More

Accessing MetaData with the Dynamics Web Api

In the previous Dynamics365 SDK, accessing metadata required that you go through a completely different service to get at the structure of your data.  With the WebApi, this has changed to simply be another querystring string call to get at your information.

Ignoring how to setup a connection, the query can be as simple as this;

string dataResponse = DynamicsHelper.Instance.GetFromDynamics("/api/data/v9.0/EntityDefinitions?$select=MetadataId,SchemaName");

Where my request for the name and id of all entities in the system is sent via EntityDefinitions.

At this stage in your query, you cannot filter out which entities you want to query for due to the fact that functions such as “contains” are not supported in this interface, thereby forcing you to do this client-side instead of during your trip to the server.

In my scenario I only wanted to return entity

Read More

ASP.NET Web API Usage with Dynamics Web Api

I’ve blogged about connection setup with the Dynamics Web API over the last little while – Getting it Setup and how to use with the USD.

One critical piece that I forgot (or rather overlooked) that needs to be mentioned is what is called the “Headless” connection.  This is a connection to your Dynamics tenant that does not use a Username or Password combination and does not prompt the user to enter in their credentials when accessing.

In my previous examples, my Application type was “native”, however, for this to work in a headless modality in a web api world, this needs to be configured as Web app / API.  If not configured this way, you will always be prompted for access to your Dynamics

Read More

Unified Service Desk and the Dynamics Web API

A follow-up to my post on Getting Started with the Dynamics Web API – on a recent project, I was building a custom hosted control in the USD that leveraged the Dynamics Web API.

However, when I went to deploy my control, my USD instance would implode and not load whatsoever.

Turns out the issue was a result of me using a higher version of the Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory dll (the latest 3.19) than what is supported in the USD (using 2.22).

The resolution was to downgrade my implementation of this dll to use 2.22 et voila, my solution deployed perfectly and my USD was no longer imploding.

I should note that for the above this is all done using v2 of the USD on a Dynamics 8.2 instance.

 

 

Read More

Saving data with the Dynamics Web Api

In my previous posts on using the Dynamics Web Api, I invested a significant amount of time in figuring out the connection protocols, querying and accessing data from the results (not being an Azure, Active Directory or JSON expert).

However, when it came to saving data, the hard work was over and I was able to do with relative ease.

To save data via the Dynamics Web API, the interface is quite similar to how you would access your controls via LateBinding except that instead of the Entity object you are consuming a JObject.

JObject phoneCall = new JObject();
 phoneCall["subject"] = "Here comes my call";
 phoneCall["phonenumber"] = "888-999-7777";
 phoneCall["scheduledend"] = DateTime.Now;
 phoneCall["description"] = "Who called me.";
//The Direction Code is always an incoming call.
 phoneCall["directioncode"] = false;

string recordId = string.Empty;
 try
 {
 HttpClient httpClient =															
Read More