Engaging your Customer Base through Web Services Presented by Ben Liyanage

Edge Web Hosting • We provide – Mission Critical Hosting – Load Balanced Solutions – Cloud Hosting – Dedicated Server Hosting • We are experts with .NET, ColdFusion, and PHP.

• 24/7 Call Center • 20-25 Employees

Why did we implement Epicor ITSM?

• Consolidate our data.

• SAS70 • Stream line our customer onboarding process • Better Support Ticket Management

Our Epicor Environment • VMWare for Application Servers • Dedicate Server for SQL • Windows 2008 Server R2 • Windows 2008 SQL Server R2 • Development, Staging, and Product Environment

Custom Portal vs Sharepoint • Share Point – Simple point and click customizations.

• Custom Portal – Customer Portal can have a richer user experience.

– Look and Feel can be tailored to your Brand – Can combine data from different sources.

What are web services?

• A web service exposes data, and processes from one application for use in another application.

• Web Services provides a layer of abstraction which protects external applications from breaking if the internal mechanics change.

• There are many types of web services. Epicor uses a SOAP based system.

• Access to your central database can be secured.

What are web services?

Web Application App Server Database Epicor Client

When should I use Epicor web services?

• When creating data.

• When updating data.

• When you need to take advantage of epicor logic.

– Example: Support Templates.

– Example: Attachments.

When to not use Epicor web services?

• When displaying data. • Epicor tends to pass too much information.

Displaying Data

Displaying Data

Set Up a Web Service in VS 2010 • Right Click your Project in the Solution Explorer • Select “Add Web Reference…” Epicor’s Global User Conference © 2010 Epicor Software Corporation.

Set Up a Web Service in VS 2010 • Type in the URL to the Service you are interested in.

• Look in your Epicor Install folder for a “Server” folder to list all of the services available.

• Epicor Web Services default to install on the following URL: http://{ServerName}/EpicorITSM/Server/{Service}.asmx

Epicor’s Global User Conference © 2010 Epicor Software Corporation.

Set Up a Web Service in VS 2010 • Type in the URL to the Service you are interested in.

• Look in your Epicor Install folder for a “Server” folder to list all of the services available.

• Epicor Web Services default to install on the following URL: http://{ServerName}/EpicorITSM/Server/{Service}.asmx

Epicor’s Global User Conference © 2010 Epicor Software Corporation.

Simple C# example with the Answerbook Module.

• Give your Web Service a name.

• Click Add Reference.

• You have now added this Web Service to your Project.

Invoking a Web Service • Browse to your Web Services’ URL.

• EX) /EpicorITSM/Server/ AnswerBookPage.asmx

• The URL will provide a list of commands you can execute • Epicor has some standard commands across all web services.

Invoking a Web Service • GetNew() – Most GetNew requests do not take a parameter. – AnswerBookPages take the Guid of the Book the page will be in as a parameter.

• GetByID() – Most Epicor Webservices have a GetByID() service, which lets you get a specific record of data, by referencing it’s GUID.

• Update() – Updates a record using a record returned from GetNew() or GetByID()

Invoking a Web Service • GetList() – Allows you to search for rows on the Web Service. – The data returned is the same data you would get on a search form in the client.

– You need to use a FindCriteria to specify your search criteria.

Setting Up FindCriteria • To Setup the FindCriteria you must add an Epicor DLL to your project.

• Right Click References.

• Select Add Reference

Setting Up FindCriteria • Navigate to the Epicor Client Folder.

• Select “Clientele.Application.Common.dll” • Click “Ok”.

Setting Up FindCriteria • Make sure you use the DLL in your code so you can use the shorthand later.

• Generally Speaking, you can search on any column you see in the database.

• FindCriteria are strongly typed. This is a bit annoying.

Invoking a Web Service • Delete() – Allows you to delete a record.

– You delete the record by specifying the Guid.

Sample Files • Below is some sample code used in the examples in this presentation.

Contact Information Ben Liyanage [email protected]

Presentation & Code Available for Download Here http://perfectresolution.com/?p=415 (You can also find it under the Epicor tag)