Web services

Path: Integration > Web services · tier official · system integration · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

Web services in Business Central expose data and logic to external clients through OData, SOAP and APIs. The section is organized into subtopics for publishing pages, queries and codeunits as endpoints, for OData and SOAP usage, for the large API reference set, and for security (authentication, certificates, cipher suites, Azure service tags).

The hub’s own pages cover operations across all three protocols. They cover troubleshooting errors (HTTP status codes, OData error codes, telemetry, debugging), performance guidance (patterns, anti-patterns, API client and Power BI performance), and web service telemetry that logs SOAP, OData and API requests to partner telemetry. A refactoring guide explains replacing legacy integration records with system fields, and a page covers the Microsoft APIs Terms of Use.

To start, read the publishing subtopic to expose an endpoint, then the security subtopic to choose authentication. Use the telemetry, performance and troubleshooting pages once consumers are running.

Key points

• Subtopics cover security, APIs (261 pages), OData (14), publishing pages and codeunits as endpoints (5), and SOAP (4).
• Security covers basic, OAuth and service-to-service authentication, certificates, supported cipher suites for outgoing HTTPS calls, and network restriction with Azure service tags.
• OData pages cover querying, filtering, modifying, batching, metadata, paging, limits, FlowFilters, unbound actions and error codes.
• Publishing covers OData V4 bound actions and troubleshooting publish errors; the SOAP feature key was removed in version 30.0.
• Web service telemetry logs all SOAP, OData and API requests, including HTTP status codes, access key authentication and publish failures.
• Troubleshooting guidance helps decide whether errors come from the client, network or server endpoint, using status codes, telemetry, OData error codes and debugging.
• Performance guidance covers anti-patterns, performance patterns, API client and Power BI performance, and throughput handling.
• Integration Management Refactoring Guidance explains replacing legacy integration records with system fields such as SystemId and SystemRowVersion before their removal in 2023 release wave 1.

Subtopics

• Web services security (7 pages)
• APIs (261 pages)
• OData (14 pages)
• Publishing pages and codeunits as OData/SOAP web service endpoints (5 pages)
• SOAP (4 pages)

More Learn pages

• Compare REST APIs, OData, and SOAP web services in Business Central: Compare the features of REST APIs, SOAP, and OData web services and know how to create and maintain these services.
• Integration Management Refactoring Guidance: This article offers guidance for refactoring the code in your Marketplace app or per-tenant extension to use system fields rather than integration records.
• Troubleshooting web service errors (OData, API, and SOAP): Learn about how to troubleshoot Business Central web service errors (OData, API, and SOAP).
• Web Service Performance (OData, API, and SOAP): Learn about how performance of Business Central web services (OData, API, and SOAP)
• Web Service Telemetry: Learn about how Business Central emits telemetry about web service requests
• Web Services Terms of Use: Terms of Use for Business Central APIs

Videos, posts and code changes

Linked by a Haiku matcher with a grounding quote from the item’s summary (link/topics.ts); machine-generated.

• #11168 Restore E-Document vendor invoice field compatibility (code change): “E-Document vendor invoice field name restored from ‘Applies-to Ext. Invoice No.’”
• #11318 [main] Bug 649189: Update E-Document vendor invoice caption (code change): “Table field caption changed to ‘Applies-to Ext. Invoice No.’”
• #9711 Fix E-Document purchase draft header Sub Total overwrite; notify on mismatch (code change): “E-Document purchase draft no longer silently overwrites the header Sub Total”
• #9737 [E-Document] Move Data Exchange definitions from labels to app resource files (code change): “E-Document installation moved eight PEPPOL Data Exchange Definition XMLs from translatable AL labels”
• #100 Add P0 integration and control add-in runtime guidance (code change): “Adds guidance and code samples for linking API parts on SystemId with Multiplicity set”
• What’s New: Server and Database - More Stable Web Services (2023 release wave 2) (video): “Web services; odata; http status codes; error handling”

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 812 “API Overview” · on Table 812 “API Overview Buffer” · via APIs

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.