Dynamics NAV Connection Details

Introduction

Connector Version

This documentation is based on version 21.0.8663 of the connector.

Get Started

Dynamics NAV Version Support

The connector supports read/write access to Dynamics NAV 2013+ through OData Web services. To access data through the API, you will need to publish the pages you want to work with as Web services: In the Web or Windows Dynamics NAV client, search for 'Web services.' To add a page to the list of the pages exposed, select the Object Type and Object Id.

Establish a Connection

Connect to Dynamics NAV

Before the connector can connect with Dynamics NAV, OData services need to be enabled on the server. Once OData services are enabled, the connector will be able to query any services that are published on the server.

In addition, specify a URL to a valid Dynamics NAV server organization root (e.g. http://MyServer:7048) and a ServerInstance (e.g. DynamicsNAV71). If there is not a Service Default Company for the server, set the Company (e.g. 'CRONUS Canada, Inc.') as well.

In a multitenant installation, specify the tenant ID in Tenant (e.g. 'Cronus1').

Authenticate to Dynamics NAV

To authenticate, set the User and Password properties to valid Dynamics NAV logon credentials or Windows user credentials. Select the appropriate authentication method in AuthScheme.

Auth Schemes

The available authentication schemes are configured in IIS where Dynamics NAV is hosted. In IIS you can select to enable or disable Digest, Basic, Windows, or Anonymous authentication. Please consult with your Dynamics NAV admin to determine which authentication scheme is appropriate for you. Set AuthScheme to one of the following:

• NEGOTIATE (default) - It is part of the Windows authentication, also known as Kerberos.
• BASIC - Basic authentication.
• DIGEST - Digest authentication.
• NTLM - Part of the Windows authentication.
• NONE - Anonymous authentication.

Important Notes

Configuration Files and Their Paths

• All references to adding configuration files and their paths refer to files and locations on the Jitterbit agent where the connector is installed. These paths are to be adjusted as appropriate depending on the agent and the operating system. If multiple agents are used in an agent group, identical files will be required on each agent.

Advanced Features

This section details a selection of advanced features of the Dynamics NAV connector.

User Defined Views

The connector allows you to define virtual tables, called user defined views, whose contents are decided by a pre-configured query. These views are useful when you cannot directly control queries being issued to the drivers. See User Defined Views for an overview of creating and configuring custom views.

SSL Configuration

Use SSL Configuration to adjust how connector handles TLS/SSL certificate negotiations. You can choose from various certificate formats; see the SSLServerCert property under "Connection String Options" for more information.

Proxy

To configure the connector using private agent proxy settings, select the Use Proxy Settings checkbox on the connection configuration screen.

User Defined Views

The Dynamics NAV connector allows you to define a virtual table whose contents are decided by a pre-configured query. These are called User Defined Views, which are useful in situations where you cannot directly control the query being issued to the driver, e.g. when using the driver from Jitterbit. The User Defined Views can be used to define predicates that are always applied. If you specify additional predicates in the query to the view, they are combined with the query already defined as part of the view.

There are two ways to create user defined views:

• Create a JSON-formatted configuration file defining the views you want.
• DDL statements.

Define Views Using a Configuration File

User Defined Views are defined in a JSON-formatted configuration file called UserDefinedViews.json. The connector automatically detects the views specified in this file.

You can also have multiple view definitions and control them using the UserDefinedViews connection property. When you use this property, only the specified views are seen by the connector.

This User Defined View configuration file is formatted as follows:

• Each root element defines the name of a view.
• Each root element contains a child element, called query, which contains the custom SQL query for the view.

For example:

{
    "MyView": {
        "query": "SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE MyColumn = 'value'"
    },
    "MyView2": {
        "query": "SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Id IN (1,2,3)"
    }
}

Use the UserDefinedViews connection property to specify the location of your JSON configuration file. For example:

"UserDefinedViews", "C:\Users\yourusername\Desktop\tmp\UserDefinedViews.json"

Schema for User Defined Views

User Defined Views are exposed in the UserViews schema by default. This is done to avoid the view's name clashing with an actual entity in the data model. You can change the name of the schema used for UserViews by setting the UserViewsSchemaName property.

Work with User Defined Views

For example, a SQL statement with a User Defined View called UserViews.RCustomers only lists customers in Raleigh:

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE City = 'Raleigh';

An example of a query to the driver:

SELECT * FROM UserViews.RCustomers WHERE Status = 'Active';

Resulting in the effective query to the source:

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE City = 'Raleigh' AND Status = 'Active';

That is a very simple example of a query to a User Defined View that is effectively a combination of the view query and the view definition. It is possible to compose these queries in much more complex patterns. All SQL operations are allowed in both queries and are combined when appropriate.

SSL Configuration

Customize the SSL Configuration

By default, the connector attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store.

To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats to do so.

Data Model

The Dynamics NAV connector models Dynamics NAV entities in relational tables and stored procedures. The table definitions are dynamically obtained from the OData service you connect to.

Tables

Only Pages that are published as Web Services in Dynamics NAV will be available as tables. The Data Model shows the tables available in the demonstration database; the actual tables available will depend on your Dynamics NAV instance.

Stored Procedures

Stored Procedures are function-like interfaces to the data source. They can be used to search, update, and modify information in the data source.

Tables

The connector models the data in Dynamics NAV into a list of tables that can be queried using standard SQL statements.

Generally, querying Dynamics NAV tables is the same as querying a table in a relational database. Sometimes there are special cases, for example, including a certain column in the WHERE clause might be required to get data for certain columns in the table. This is typically needed for situations where a separate request must be made for each row to get certain columns. These types of situations are clearly documented at the top of the table page linked below.

Dynamics NAV Connector Tables

Company

The DynamicsNAV table Company.

Columns

Country

The DynamicsNAV table Country.

Columns

Currency

The DynamicsNAV table Currency.

Columns

Customer

The DynamicsNAV table Customer.

Columns

GeneralProductPosting

The DynamicsNAV table GeneralProductPosting.

Columns

PurchaseLines

The DynamicsNAV table PurchaseLines.

Columns

PurchaseOrder

The DynamicsNAV table PurchaseOrder.

Columns

PurchaseOrderPurchLines

The DynamicsNAV table PurchaseOrderPurchLines.

Columns

PurchaseOrders

The DynamicsNAV table PurchaseOrders.

Columns

ResourceCard

The DynamicsNAV table ResourceCard.

Columns

SalesOrder

The DynamicsNAV table SalesOrder.

Columns

Stored Procedures

Stored procedures are available to complement the data available from the Data Model. It may be necessary to update data available from a view using a stored procedure because the data does not provide for direct, table-like, two-way updates. In these situations, the retrieval of the data is done using the appropriate view or table, while the update is done by calling a stored procedure. Stored procedures take a list of parameters and return back a dataset that contains the collection of tuples that constitute the response.

Dynamics NAV Connector Stored Procedures

CreateAssociation

Creates an association between two entities. This will only work for tables that have in-line columns.

Input

Result Set Columns

ListAssociations

Lists associations for a given entity Id. This will only work for tables that have in-line columns.

Input

Result Set Columns

RemoveAssociation

Removes an association between two entities. This will only work for tables that have in-line columns.

Input

Result Set Columns

System Tables

You can query the system tables described in this section to access schema information, information on data source functionality, and batch operation statistics.

Schema Tables

The following tables return database metadata for Dynamics NAV:

• sys_catalogs: Lists the available databases.
• sys_schemas: Lists the available schemas.
• sys_tables: Lists the available tables and views.
• sys_tablecolumns: Describes the columns of the available tables and views.
• sys_procedures: Describes the available stored procedures.
• sys_procedureparameters: Describes stored procedure parameters.
• sys_keycolumns: Describes the primary and foreign keys.
• sys_indexes: Describes the available indexes.

Data Source Tables

The following tables return information about how to connect to and query the data source:

• sys_connection_props: Returns information on the available connection properties.
• sys_sqlinfo: Describes the SELECT queries that the connector can offload to the data source.

Query Information Tables

The following table returns query statistics for data modification queries:

• sys_identity: Returns information about batch operations or single updates.

sys_catalogs

Lists the available databases.

The following query retrieves all databases determined by the connection string:

SELECT * FROM sys_catalogs

Columns

sys_schemas

Lists the available schemas.

The following query retrieves all available schemas:

SELECT * FROM sys_schemas

Columns

sys_tables

Lists the available tables.

The following query retrieves the available tables and views:

SELECT * FROM sys_tables

Columns

sys_tablecolumns

Describes the columns of the available tables and views.

The following query returns the columns and data types for the Customer table:

SELECT ColumnName, DataTypeName FROM sys_tablecolumns WHERE TableName='Customer'

Columns

sys_procedures

Lists the available stored procedures.

The following query retrieves the available stored procedures:

SELECT * FROM sys_procedures

Columns

sys_procedureparameters

Describes stored procedure parameters.

The following query returns information about all of the input parameters for the CreateAssociation stored procedure:

SELECT * FROM sys_procedureparameters WHERE ProcedureName='CreateAssociation' AND Direction=1 OR Direction=2

Columns

sys_keycolumns

Describes the primary and foreign keys.

The following query retrieves the primary key for the Customer table:

SELECT * FROM sys_keycolumns WHERE IsKey='True' AND TableName='Customer'

Columns

sys_foreignkeys

Describes the foreign keys.

The following query retrieves all foreign keys which refer to other tables:

SELECT * FROM sys_foreignkeys WHERE ForeignKeyType = 'FOREIGNKEY_TYPE_IMPORT'

Columns

sys_indexes

Describes the available indexes. By filtering on indexes, you can write more selective queries with faster query response times.

The following query retrieves all indexes that are not primary keys:

SELECT * FROM sys_indexes WHERE IsPrimary='false'

Columns

sys_connection_props

Returns information on the available connection properties and those set in the connection string.

When querying this table, the config connection string should be used:

jdbc:cdata:dynamicsnav:config:

This connection string enables you to query this table without a valid connection.

The following query retrieves all connection properties that have been set in the connection string or set through a default value:

SELECT * FROM sys_connection_props WHERE Value <> ''

Columns

sys_sqlinfo

Describes the SELECT query processing that the connector can offload to the data source.

Collaborative Query Processing

When working with data sources that do not support SQL-92, you can query the sys_sqlinfo view to determine the query capabilities of the underlying APIs, expressed in SQL syntax. The connector offloads as much of the SELECT statement processing as possible to the server and then processes the rest of the query in memory.

Discovering the Data Source's SELECT Capabilities

Below is an example data set of SQL capabilities. The following result set indicates the SELECT functionality that the connector can offload to the data source or process client side. Your data source may support additional SQL syntax. Some aspects of SELECT functionality are returned in a comma-separated list if supported; otherwise, the column contains NO.

The following query retrieves the operators that can be used in the WHERE clause:

SELECT * FROM sys_sqlinfo WHERE Name='SUPPORTED_OPERATORS'

Note that individual tables may have different limitations or requirements on the WHERE clause; refer to the Data Model section for more information.

Columns

sys_identity

Returns information about attempted modifications.

The following query retrieves the Ids of the modified rows in a batch operation:

SELECT * FROM sys_identity

Columns

Data Type Mapping

Data Type Mappings

The connector maps types from the data source to the corresponding data type available in the schema. The table below documents these mappings.

Advanced Configurations Properties

The advanced configurations properties are the various options that can be used to establish a connection. This section provides a complete list of the options you can configure. Click the links for further details.

Authentication

SSL

Schema

Miscellaneous

Authentication

This section provides a complete list of authentication properties you can configure.

URL

URL to the Dynamics NAV server organization root. For example, http://MyServer:7048.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

URL to the Dynamics NAV server organization root. For example, http://MyServer:7048.

ServerInstance

The instance of the Dynamics NAV server. For example, DynamicsNAV71.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The instance of the Dynamics NAV server. For example, DynamicsNAV71.

AuthScheme

The scheme used for authentication. Accepted entries are NTLM, Basic, Digest, None, or Negotiate. Negotiate is the default option.

Possible Values

None, NTLM, Basic, Digest, Negotiate

Data Type

string

Default Value

Negotiate

Remarks

Together with Password and User, this field is used to authenticate against the server. Negotiate is the default option. Use the following options to select your authentication scheme:

• NTLM: Set this to use your Windows credentials to authenticate.
• Basic: Set this to use HTTP Basic authentication.
• Negotiate: If AuthScheme is set to Negotiate, the connector will negotiate an authentication mechanism with the server. Set AuthScheme to Negotiate to use Kerberos authentication.
• Digest: Set this to use HTTP Digest authentication.
• None: Indicates the service does not use authentication. I is not normally supported.

User

The Dynamics NAV user account used to authenticate.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Together with Password, this field is used to authenticate against the Dynamics NAV server.

Company

The company to submit queries against. For example, 'CRONUS Canada, Inc.'.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The company to submit queries against. For example, 'CRONUS Canada, Inc.'. This property is required if the Service Default Company has not been specified for the ServerInstance in question. If blank, the connector will submit queries to the server and attempt to use the Service Default Company.

Password

The password used to authenticate the user.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The User and Password are together used to authenticate with the server.

SSL

This section provides a complete list of SSL properties you can configure.

SSLServerCert

The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine is rejected.

This property can take the following forms:

If not specified, any certificate trusted by the machine is accepted.

Certificates are validated as trusted by the machine based on the System's trust store. The trust store used is the 'javax.net.ssl.trustStore' value specified for the system. If no value is specified for this property, Java's default trust store is used (for example, JAVA_HOME\lib\security\cacerts).

Use '*' to signify to accept all certificates. Note that this is not recommended due to security concerns.

Schema

This section provides a complete list of schema properties you can configure.

Location

A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures.

Data Type

string

Default Value

%APPDATA%\DynamicsNAV Data Provider\Schema

Remarks

The path to a directory which contains the schema files for the connector (.rsd files for tables and views, .rsb files for stored procedures). The folder location can be a relative path from the location of the executable. The Location property is only needed if you want to customize definitions (for example, change a column name, ignore a column, and so on) or extend the data model with new tables, views, or stored procedures.

If left unspecified, the default location is "%APPDATA%\DynamicsNAV Data Provider\Schema" with %APPDATA% being set to the user's configuration directory:

BrowsableSchemas

This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Listing the schemas from databases can be expensive. Providing a list of schemas in the connection string improves the performance.

Tables

This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Listing the tables from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of tables in the connection string improves the performance of the connector.

This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.

Specify the tables you want in a comma-separated list. Each table should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Tables=TableA,[TableB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`TableC With Space`.

Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.

Views

Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Listing the views from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of views in the connection string improves the performance of the connector.

This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.

Specify the views you want in a comma-separated list. Each view should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Views=ViewA,[ViewB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`ViewC With Space`.

Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.

Miscellaneous

This section provides a complete list of miscellaneous properties you can configure.

ContinueOnError

Whether or not to continue after encountering an error on a batch request.

Data Type

bool

Default Value

false

Remarks

This connection property is only supported on servers with OData version 4.0 and higher. However, individual servers may choose to ignore this setting. Setting ContinueOnError to true will cause exceptions to be returned in the temporary table instead of being thrown when a batch request is attempted.

MaxRows

Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.

Data Type

int

Default Value

-1

Remarks

Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.

Other

These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

The properties listed below are available for specific use cases. Normal driver use cases and functionality should not require these properties.

Specify multiple properties in a semicolon-separated list.

Integration and Formatting

PseudoColumns

This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

This setting is particularly helpful in Entity Framework, which does not allow you to set a value for a pseudo column unless it is a table column. The value of this connection setting is of the format "Table1=Column1, Table1=Column2, Table2=Column3". You can use the "*" character to include all tables and all columns; for example, "*=*".

Tenant

Use this value to connect to a specific Tenant in a multitenant installation of DynamicsNAV.

Data Type

string

Default Value

""

Remarks

Specify the tenant ID to connect to a specific tenant in a multitenant installation of DynamicsNAV. For example, "Cronus1".

Timeout

The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation.

Data Type

int

Default Value

60

Remarks

If Timeout = 0, operations do not time out. The operations run until they complete successfully or until they encounter an error condition.

If Timeout expires and the operation is not yet complete, the connector throws an exception.