Navision Database access via C/ ODBC WebService/ ASP.NET Application

Navision together with Microsoft Great Plains, Axapta, Solomon, Microsoft CRM and Microsoft RMS are now supported by Microsoft Business Solutions. Navision has various customization options. Today we will describe a simple case of using the C/ODBC driver. This driver and technology allows you to work with a Native or C/SIDE Navision database. Navision is also available on Microsoft SQL Server - in this case you use traditional Microsoft technologies, such as a OLEDB or MS SQL Server driver to open the ADO.NET connection. Our goal is to help IT departments to support and tune Navision with in-house expertise and skills. The topic of this article is Navision Attain database access through Webservice, connected to Navision via C/ODBC based Linked Server - the mechanism available in MS SQL Server 2000 and transfer the results to an ASP.NET application. Our goal will be an ASPX page accessing Navision Customers. Let's begin In our case we will use Navision Attain 3.6 with Navision Database Server, Navision Application Server and Navision Client. These components are installed on Windows XP. You also need to install C/ODBC component form Navision Attain CD. Let's create ODBC DSN for Navision data access. Select Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Data Sources (ODBC). Then select System DSN tab and press the Add button. We'll use C/ODBC 32-bit data access driver. We'll name Data Source Name Navision, Connection leave Local. As the database (Database button) select \Program Files\Navision Attain\Client\database.fdb (demo database). Then click Company button - we'll use CRONUS demo company. It is important for C/SIDE correct database access to setup proper options for C/ODBC connection. Press Options button and look at the options available - we'll need Identifiers parameter - it defines identifiers types, which will be transferred to the client application. In order to work correct with MS SQL Server 2000 with C/ODBC source we need to use these type: "a-z,A-Z,0-9,_". Now DNS is done. Let's create Linked Server. Open MS SQL Server Enterprise Manager. Open server tree for the server, which you plan to use, for this server open Security folder and Lined Servers. With right click select New Linked Server in context menu. In the dialog box opened in the Provider Name select Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers. Let's name our Linked Server NAVISION. In Data Source string enter ODBC DSN name - NAVISION in our case. Linked Server is ready! Let's select tables list and look at the data from Navision Attain database. Next we need to create a small stored procedure for sales data selection. Here is the text of the procedure: SET ANSI_NULLS ON SET ANSI_WARNINGS ON GO CREATE PROCEDURE NavisionCustomers AS DBCC TRACEON(8765) SELECT No_, Name, Address, City, Contact FROM OPENQUERY(NAVISION, 'SELECT * FROM Customer') RETURN Let's clarify some points here. TRACEON(8765) directive allows us to work with the data of variable length, returned by C/ODBC driver. Without it we can not select Navision tables fields - we will have these errors: OLE DB error trace [Non-interface error: Unexpected data length returned for the column: ProviderName='MSDASQL', TableName='[MSDASQL]', ColumnName='Ship_to_Filter', ExpectedLength='250', ReturnedLength='1']. Server: Msg 7347, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 OLE DB provider 'MSDASQL' returned an unexpected data length for the fixed-length column '[MSDASQL].Ship_to_Filter'. The expected data length is 250, while the returned data length is 1. OPENQUERY command opens linked server and gives it execution request, and returns record set selected. Directives ANSI_NULLS and ANSI_WARNINGS are required - they provide the possibility of the execution for heterogeneous requests. To test the procedure you can give its name in MS SQL Query Analyzer - EXEC NavisionCustomers Now we need to create ASP.NET application. Let's use free RAD environment ASP.NET WebMatrix. You can get infor and download it at Now let's create ASP.NET application which will show the result set, returned by WebService. Create empty ASP.NET page with the wizard WebMatrix. Name it TestNavisionItems.aspx . Place these controls on the page: DataGrid and Button. Then switch to the Code mode and from the menu Tools launch WebService Proxy Generator. In the showing dialog screen specify www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Unix, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports, Microsoft CRM SDK and Exchange Server SDK developer. You can reach Boris: borism@albaspectrum.com