NAV webservices for external customer

Developer101

Hello,

I have a project where we need to develop in our portal to access their data in our NAV. They need to see invoices which they need to pay etc.

Now we need to decide what is the best approach. We have NAV 2009. If we use NAV 2009 webservices how that will work. I know how it works and I did develop small test ASP.net application on local server which displays data from NAV on the webpage using NAV webservices.

But what to expect if we publish that webservice to internet? 20 of our customers might want to log on in a day. That would take 20 licenses or one license?

What if portal team just develops webpages to look at NAV SQL Server database. Then that would not create issue licenses issues and blocking issues right?

NAV webserives is good because you can do NAV logic there and easier to write NAV code to access data but we just need to display data only and flowfields work in webserives .



Please advice.

Miklos_Hollender

Well, I don't really know about the licences but the big advantage of Web Services is firing business logic, so if it is not needed then I see it as a fairly big vote against it.

FlowFields are not really big deal for SQL. Consider Inventory on the Item Card. In NAV FlowFields are important because for every Item launching a separate SELECT SUM on Item Ledger Entry is a big deal. But in SQL of course you don't do that, you do one select sum item ledger entry GROUP BY Item No_ and that is generally fast enough.

Of course I still would not launch it every time someone clicks on the website. Yeah SQL is supposed to cache it... theoretically I don't trust this. I would just make a snapshot every hour.

This is just my 2 cents. It is still more "modern" and more flexible to use Web Services and it definitely looks good on your CV that you build a Service Oriented Architecture in NAV , but I cannot answer the licencing part.

Developer101

Thanks Miklos thats interesting.


Please any other input on this from someone please?

Marije_Brummel

You also need to put security into account.

From a license perspective it does not matter if you access SQL Data directly. If you access NAV data in SQL Server you still need a license even if you do not use NAV for the connection.

Off course this is not tested by anything.

You should be able to use light users that are "only" like 150 euro's or so.

Marije_Brummel

You also might want to look at Anveo. They have a great portal product that is extremely cheap. You cannot create something yourself for the price they sell their product.

Developer101

Mark Brummel wrote:

You also need to put security into account.

From a license perspective it does not matter if you access SQL Data directly. If you access NAV data in SQL Server you still need a license even if you do not use NAV for the connection.

Off course this is not tested by anything.

You should be able to use light users that are "only" like 150 euro's or so.

Thanks Mark thats very helpful. I will look into Anveo.

I thought if we had built a web page which picking data from SQL Server would not require license? Wouldn't be same if I am just querying the SQL Server data from forexample Excel?

Light users license who provides it? How many licenses would we require? One for each customer? Or just one license?
Is it a tool to Install a server or something where it listens to input from web clients?

Could you send link where I can buy the light user license please?

Please explain.

Marije_Brummel

Ask your partner about the light users.

Yes, even if you query NAV data from Excel "officially" you need a license.

ichladil

Hi Mark,

my believe actually was that if you wanted to show invoices to the customers that you needed only external connector in NAV2009 and in NAV2013 you do not need even that (as those are the users not running your business processes)? Am I wrong in my assumptions?
Further on I believe that technically web services do not consume technically the used licenses. I believe that from license perspective you would need light users if those are your users (i.e. not customers but your employees) accessing NAV 2009 by other technical means then native NAV clients. As I have come across similar scenarios a few times, Mark, please correct my opinion if it is wrong.

Thanks!

Regards,
Igor

Marije_Brummel

That's interesting. So you say that if a customer of a NAV user reads from the database you do not need any license?

Developer101

That's what I was also thinking that customer can view data without license.
But if Webservices are used as because Webservices fetch data directly from NAV and can run business logic that's why it requires the license.

What is Connector? Thanks

ichladil

Hello,

external connector is a granule in NAV 2009 license which should allow you to provide unlimited external access to NAV for your customers/vendors/etc (external contacts). This granule used to cost ca 2000 EUR (or GBP). This granule does not exist in NAV 2013 as you should be allowed to provide external access without that granule (+ points for upgrade I believe).

I am not sure however where is the exact boundary between external connector and other access types from license point of view, but I believe it is the following:

1. The external users are not accessing native NAV clients (RTC/Web/Classic). (But they should be able to use e.g. custom web portals reading/writing to NAV).
2. The external users are not your employees.
3. The external users are not running business processes in NAV. But I still believe that e.g. creating the purchase/sales order from web shop or vendor portal is not business process whereas picking/shipping/posting purchase order is business process.

Please, anybody, correct me if I am wrong.

Regards,
Igor

Developer101

Hi ,

How can I check if I have External Connector?

How can I set it up please? Where the Nav 2009 odbc comes in?

Please I will appreciate if I get the answers.

Thanks alot

ichladil

Hello,

Check your NAV license file (flf or from NAV client -> Tools -> License) to see if you have External Connector (Granule 2510) in there.
External Connector should allow you to show any data to your customers from license perspective (so that you are correctly licensed). But technically it has no impact and there is no SW component related to it.

I.e. you should just still read the data in any way you want to: I prefer direct NAV SQL database access or published NAV 2009 web services. I would avoid ODBC if possible.

Regards,
Igor

Developer101

ichladil wrote:

Hello,

Check your NAV license file (flf or from NAV client -> Tools -> License) to see if you have External Connector (Granule 2510) in there.
External Connector should allow you to show any data to your customers from license perspective (so that you are correctly licensed). But technically it has no impact and there is no SW component related to it.

I.e. you should just still read the data in any way you want to: I prefer direct NAV SQL database access or published NAV 2009 web services. I would avoid ODBC if possible.

Regards,
Igor

Thanks I will check.

bbrown

Don't overlook the cost of licensing Windows and SQL also.

Developer101

Sorry for delayed come back.

I have checked the current license and it has no external connector granule.
Regarding checking with partner , we do not have any as this time and the management is looking for the new partner and then only we can go further with this.

So for the time being the project is on hold.

But once there is any update I will certainly post on there.

Thanks