Creating new entities from PHP using the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016's Odata web services

Question

As part of an integration project, I need a PHP website to be able to both read from and write to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016's Odata services.

I found that fetching a list of existing customers from PHP is as simple as this :

$ch = curl_init(); 

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://<Server>:<WebServicePort>/<ServerInstance>/OData/Company(\'<CompanyName>\')/customer'); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, 'USERNAME:PASSWORD');   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
        'Connection: Keep-Alive',    
        'Accept: application/json',          
        'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8',   
        "Accept: */*"                       
]);   

$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), TRUE);
echo json_encode($response, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

// Close handle
curl_close($ch); 

$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), TRUE);
echo json_encode($response, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

// Close handle
curl_close($ch);

I also found that fetching a single customer from PHP is as simple as this :

$ch = curl_init(); 

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://<Server>:<WebServicePort>/<ServerInstance>/OData/Company(\'<CompanyName>\')/customer(\'<Id>\')'); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, 'USERNAME:PASSWORD');   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
        'Connection: Keep-Alive',    
        'Accept: application/json',          
        'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8',   
        "Accept: */*"                       
]);   

$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), TRUE);
echo json_encode($response, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

// Close handle
curl_close($ch);

So far, so good. Now, my problem is that I'm struggling to figure out how to create any new customers.

I tried this :

$ch = curl_init(); 

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://<Server>:<WebServicePort>/<ServerInstance>/OData/Company(\'<Company>\')/customer'); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);  
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, [
    'Name' => 'WebServiceTestCustomer',
    'Address' => 'TestCustomerStreet 55',
    'Credit_Limit_LCY' => 0
]);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, 'USERNAME:PASSWORD');   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
        'Connection: Keep-Alive',    
        'Accept: application/json',          
        'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8',   
        "Accept: */*"                       
]);   

$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), TRUE);
echo json_encode($response, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

// Close handle
curl_close($ch);

That didn't work.

As I figured it might be lacking some fields, I also tried this :

$ch = curl_init(); 

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://<Server>:<WebServicePort>/<ServerInstance>/OData/Company(\'<Company>\')/customer'); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);  
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, [
    'Name' => 'WebServiceTestCustomer',
    'Phone_No' => '016666666',
    'Post_Code' => '3000',
    'Country_Region_Code' => 'BE',
    'Currency_Code' => 'EUR',
    'Language_Code' => 'NL',
    'Customer_Posting_Group' => 'BINNENLAND',
    'Gen_Bus_Posting_Group' => 'BINNENLAND',
    'VAT_Bus_Posting_Group' => 'BINNENLAND',
    'Payment_Terms_Code' => '14 DAGEN',
    'Reminder_Terms_Code' => 'NEDERLANDS'
]);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, 'USERNAME:PASSWORD');   
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
        'Connection: Keep-Alive',    
        'Accept: application/json',          
        'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8',   
        "Accept: */*"                       
]);   

$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), TRUE);
echo json_encode($response, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

// Close handle
curl_close($ch);

That didn't work either.

Regardless of whatever I set as POST fields, I keep getting this totally unhelpful error message :

{
    "odata.error": {
        "code": "",
        "message": {
            "lang": "en-US",
            "value": "An error occurred while processing this request."
        }
    }
}

Unfortunately, the documentation isn't very helpful either.

Does anyone here have a clue how to fix this?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '16 at 14:57

3

After wading through countless resources and banging my head against the wall, I finally managed to create an new customer.

I made two noob mistakes :

I used the wrong data source for my web service : I used Object ID 22 (Customer List) instead of Object ID 21 (Customer Card).
The POST data has to be Json-encoded. It should not be an array or query string. So, replacing curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, [...]); with curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode[...])); did the trick.

I hope this information will help others save time.

answered Feb 22 '16 at 14:57

John Slegers

45,213
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169

1

Hey, your first problem was that the customer List object is not editable. I'm suggesting to create lightweight page objects to use. Just create a new Page based on the Customer Table in your customization area (50000) and add all fields you want to access. You won't have any problems with interference, as the custom object is not displayed to the end user. – Florian Mar 16 '16 at 12:39

Creating new entities from PHP using the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016's Odata web services

1 Answers1