Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Class Libraries (DLLs)

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Class Libraries (DLLs)

 

Purpose: The purpose of this document is to illustrate how to work with class libraries in the context of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

 

Challenge: For the purposes of POC, integration project or development project you may need to consume Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Web Services from external class libraries or call external Web Services from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 managed code assemblies.

 

Solution: In this walkthrough I'm going to highlight number of ways you can consume Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Web Services from external class library using configuration settings in application config file or handled in the application code. Also I will highlight how develop Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 managed code assemblies and then call external Web Services from there.

 

Walkthrough

 

Calling Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Web Service from external Class Library (DLL)

 

First of all I will expose Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Web Services via Inbound ports using NET.TCP and HTTP adapters

 

Inbound port (NET.TCP)

 

 

Inbound port (HTTP)

 

 

IIS

 

 

After Web Services have been exposed through Inbound ports in your client application you can Add Service Reference using WSDL URI as shown below

 

Add Service Reference (NET.TCP)

 

 

Add Service Reference (HTTP)

 

 

Added Service Reference will show up in your project as below

 

Solution Explorer (Console App)

 

 

Please note that corresponding Endpoint and Binding details will be added to App.config after you added Service Reference

 

App.config

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration>     <startup>         <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />     </startup>     <system.serviceModel>         <bindings>             <netTcpBinding>                 <binding name="NetTcpBinding_AdvancedLedgerEntryService" />             </netTcpBinding>         </bindings>         <client>             <endpoint address="net.tcp://ax2012r2a:8201/DynamicsAx/Services/AlexServices" binding="netTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="NetTcpBinding_AdvancedLedgerEntryService" contract="ServiceReference1.AdvancedLedgerEntryService" name="NetTcpBinding_AdvancedLedgerEntryService">                 <identity>                     <userPrincipalName value="admin@Contoso.com" />                 </identity>             </endpoint>         </client>     </system.serviceModel> </configuration>

 

Now I’ll create a class library project and Add Service Reference too

 

Solution Explorer (Class Library)

 

 

Similarly to above corresponding Endpoint and Binding details will be added to App.config 

 

App.config

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration>     <system.serviceModel>         <bindings>             <netTcpBinding>                 <binding name="NetTcpBinding_AdvancedLedgerEntryService" />             </netTcpBinding>         </bindings>         <client>             <endpoint address="net.tcp://ax2012r2a:8201/DynamicsAx/Services/AlexServices" binding="netTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="NetTcpBinding_AdvancedLedgerEntryService" contract="ServiceReference1.AdvancedLedgerEntryService" name="NetTcpBinding_AdvancedLedgerEntryService">                 <identity>                     <userPrincipalName value="admin@Contoso.com" />                 </identity>             </endpoint>         </client>     </system.serviceModel> </configuration>

 

In fact when leveraging business logic from class library you have to use client application config file instead of original DLL config file. That’s why I will copy Endpoint and Binding details from DLL config file over to client app config file

 

Client application Config file

 

<?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration>     <system.serviceModel>         <bindings>             <netTcpBinding>                 <binding name="NetTcpBinding_AlexService" />             </netTcpBinding>         </bindings>         <client>             <endpoint address="net.tcp://ax2012r2a:8201/DynamicsAx/Services/AlexServices"                 binding="netTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="NetTcpBinding_AlexService"                 contract="AXServiceReference.AlexService" name="NetTcpBinding_AlexService">                 <identity>                     <userPrincipalName value="admin@Contoso.com" />                 </identity>             </endpoint>         </client>     </system.serviceModel> </configuration>

 

Now my client application will be well aware about Endpoint and Binding details for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Web Service

 

Alternatively you can handle Endpoint and Binding details for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Web Service directly in client application code as shown below  

 

Client application Code

 

BasicHttpBinding binding = new BasicHttpBinding(); binding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.TransportCredentialOnly; binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.Windows;   EndpointAddress address = new EndpointAddress("http://ax2012r2a.contoso.com/MicrosoftDynamicsAXAif60/AlexWebServices/xppservice.svc");   AlexServiceClient client = new AlexServiceClient(binding, address);   CallContext context = new CallContext(); context.Company = "usmf";   client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.Domain = "contoso"; client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.UserName = "Admin"; client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.Password = "pass@word1";   try {     client.method1(context); } catch (Exception e) {   }

 

Call external Web Service from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Class Library (DLL)

 

In the second part of the walkthrough I’m going to wrap a business logic calling external Web Service with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 managed code assembly

 

First off I’ll create Class Library project with minimalistic implementation for a single class and method which mimic calling external Web Service

 

Class Library  

 

 

As coding is complete I’ll add Class Library project directly into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 AOT. Please note that I have Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Visual Studio Tools installed to accomplish this: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd309576.aspx

 

My project now will change its icon to Microsoft Dynamics specific one, after that I’ll be able to select auto-deployment options in Project Properties. Specifically I will choose to deploy assembly to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Client (Yes) and Server (Yes)

 

Class Library (Deployment)

 

 

After successful deployment my project will show up in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 AOT

 

AOT – C Sharp Projects

 

 

Here’s the implementation of class and method which mimic calling external Web Service from within Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 managed code assembly

 

Source code

 

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks;   namespace AlexDLL {     public class Class1     {         public string method1()         {             return "External Web Service call";         }     } }

 

Generally it would be a good idea to encapsulate business logic calling external Web Service in a single method in managed code assembly, this way you can simply call a single method in X++ to consume Web Service and obtain the result

 

When deploying assemblies from within Visual Studio you may need to make sure that “Enable the hot-swapping of assemblies for each development session” setting is selected in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Server Configuration Utility in order to avoid deployment errors

 

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Server Configuration Utility

 

 

Before you deploy you will need to Sign the assembly in Project Properties > Signing

 

Create Strong Name Key

 

 

Now we are ready to deploy the assembly

 

Deploy

 

 

Upon successful deployment you will be able to use IntelliSense in X++ and consume elements of managed code assembly namespace just the way you consume native X++ business logic classes

 

X++ code

 

static void DLL(Args _args) {     AlexDLL.Class1 class1 = new AlexDLL.Class1();       info(class1.method1()); }

 

The result will look like below

 

Result

 

 

Please learn more about Deploying Managed Code Assemblies here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg889192.aspx

 

Summary: In this walkthrough I illustrated how to call Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 SOAP Web Services from Windows 8 application using JavaScript and shed some light into what's happening behind the scenes when you call Web Service, how request and response look like and what you have to do to successfully call Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 SOAP-based Web Services.

 

Tags: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, Custom Web Services, X++, C#.NET, HTTP, NET.TCP, Config file, Class library, DLL, Endpoint, Binding.

 

Note: This document is intended for information purposes only, presented as it is with no warranties from the author. This document may be updated with more content to better outline the issues and describe the solutions.

 

Author: Alex Anikiev, PhD, MCP