Accessing CodeUnits Via COM/SOAP

We aren't going to use MSMQ for that as it's message queuing system, not a synchronous communication system. I want to use the right tool for the job, not simply what "works". In this scenario we need something using either COM, a wrapper assembly, or a SOAP interface.

Also, this is going to be something that happens thousands of times a second in a very synchronous manner.

All of our logic for price computation (based on dozens of Navision tables) for our e-commerce sites are in CodeUnits. Part of our business is actually IN Navision.

I recently, found out that one of the developers on the project was writing all price, shipping, tax, and related logic in Navision and then writing them again for the web. As the architect, I almost fell out of my chair listening to this. Needless to say, I need a way to have the outside world access these code units in Navision in a proper manner.

If there were a way to create sinks in Navision which are then called via COM, then that would probably work. I just need an interface to Navision and an interface back.

Saint-Sage wrote:

It depends on exactly what you want to do.

First, why do you want to avoid MSMQ? Is it because of the difficulty or fault instability, or a matter of timing?

Basically you could connect to a Navision table, and insert a job request. Then have some type of timer similar to job scheduler that goes in every few seconds/minutes and looks in that table for new jobs to execute. If it finds one, it then executes it.

Instead of a table you could create a custom DLL that has functions which you call in .NET that in turn fire a trigger in the automation. If this automation were installed in a similar "job scheduler" type service either on a client or on NAS, then the events would trigger in Navision and you could do whatever you wanted off of that trigger.

Basically it depends on what you want .NET and Navision and what you want to control those events occuring.

I hope this helps, have a great day!

I'm familiar with the age old "MSMQ for RPC calling" controversy, but as the architect, I must follow proper architectural guidelines at any and all costs, even at the cost of functionality. Using the extremely controversial MSMQ for RPC calls to emulate xml services isn't something I feel comfortable with in production environments. I'm sure it works great in places, but I can't get involved in that controversy.

Also, this looks like it's for Dynamics. We can only use things for 3.6 (or 4.0 if needed-- not Dynamics).

There's gotta be a way to access codeunits in another way. I have no problem with writing my own COM component or socket server to listen for SOAP or RPC messages.

kine wrote:

Sorry, but MSMQ are not "Asynchronous". They are used in WebServices - Call the function, wait for answer... (it means synchronous communication). If you will look into this example: http://www.mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=599

you will see, that it is easy to create webservice which is communicating with other applications over SOAP/HTTP/etc. (synchronized) and with NAS over MSMQ (synchronized, if no answer till timeout, then error). You can easilly change and extend the example to your needs. I used it and now I have webservice for reading Sales Price for single customer/item/quantity, reading availability of selected quantity of some item etc. (all logic is in NAV). You just needs to add some new class into the WebService app and modify the handler in NAV to generate correct XML answer for the request (some XMLPort or using DOM or plain text).