Engaging your Customer Base through Web Services Presented by Ben Liyanage

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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 ApplicationApp 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

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

Set Up a Web Service in VS 2010 Epicor’s Global User Conference © 2010 Epicor Software Corporation. 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:

Set Up a Web Service in VS 2010 Epicor’s Global User Conference © 2010 Epicor Software Corporation. 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:

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 Presentation & Code Available for Download Here (You can also find it under the Epicor tag)