Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

Services in Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012
White Paper

This white paper gives an overview of different types of services

available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and provides guidance
to developers and architects in deciding when to use a specific
service type. The white paper assumes familiarity with the
various programming models in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012
and with the basics of the Services and Application Integration
Framework.

http://microsoft.com/dynamics/ax

Date: February 2011

Author: Nitin Sharma, Senior Program Manager

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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................ 3

Audience ..................................................................................................... 3

Prerequisites ............................................................................................... 3

Purpose....................................................................................................... 3

Overview of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 services ............................... 3

Document services ................................................................................................................ 3
Custom services ................................................................................................................... 4
System services.................................................................................................................... 5
How to distinguish between the three key service types ............................................................. 5

Exposing business entities as services ........................................................ 6

Conclusion .................................................................................................. 7

SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012

Introduction
Microsoft Dynamics® AX 2012 provides many services that can be used by the Microsoft Dynamics AX
components and with third-party applications. Services are programmable artifacts in Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012. The inventory of services shipped in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 includes X++
and managed code services. Developers can alter existing services and create new X++–based
services.
All customizable application and framework X++ services in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 are compiled
to Microsoft® intermediate language (MSIL). They can be grouped together and deployed as ports,
which is a new concept introduced in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. A port represents a Windows®
Communication Foundation (WCF) service host, and all services that it hosts are WCF endpoints. By
default, a port is hosted on the Application Object Server (AOS) or on Internet Information Services
(IIS) if HTTP is chosen as the adapter.
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 also ships with non-customizable system services that aid application
development.

Audience
This white paper targets developers and architects who are planning to use services in Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012.

Prerequisites
To benefit from this white paper, you must understand the following areas:
 Programming models in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. For more information, see the white
paper “Selecting the Best Development Technology for your Application Development
Scenario_AX2012”, which is also on the Microsoft Connect site.
 Basics of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services and Application Integration Framework.

Purpose
The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of services available in Microsoft Dynamics
AX 2012 and to provide guidance about the types of services that are best suited for a given scenario.

Overview of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 services

The following services are available in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

Document services
Introduced in Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, documents represent business objects, such as customers,
vendors, and sales orders. Document services enable you to exchange data with external systems by
sending and receiving XML documents. The following figure shows the internal details of a document
service.

SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012

 Microsoft Dynamics AX

Table Ax<Table> Classes Document Service XML Message

Class
Axd<Document>
Class

The DocumentService class exposes the operations of the service. The DocumentService class
calls the functionality in Axd <Document> classes that contain any customizations to the business
logic for modeled entities. For example, the AxdCustomer class contains the customization logic to
create, update, or delete a customer entity. Axd <Document> classes can use Ax<Table> classes
to create, update, or delete document tables, or optionally to apply customizations during read
operations.
Document services are generated from a query that models the business entity. For example, a
customer query will run the Document Service Generation Wizard to create the service artifacts.
Document services include logic to handle the details of how a query will be serialized or de-serialized
from XML that is sent across a network. For example, the document services framework can serialize
and de-serialize dimension attributes and perform natural key substitution. The framework deals with
the polymorphic nature of queries, the date effective fields, and so on. All the data-layer
improvements have been handled in the framework. The creator of a document service only has to
make sure that the business entity is properly mapped to the query object.
All artifacts produced in a document service are customizable so that a developer can further fine-tune
the functionality based on the requirements.
Synchronization APIs
Two new APIs have been introduced in the document services framework to enable the
synchronization of entities between Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and external systems. These APIs are
not present in the preinstalled document services or in the Document Service Generation Wizard.
Developers must extend this base support to enable their own scenarios.
 getKeys method: Similar to the existing findKeys method, but applies the document filters
that have been configured for the service and port. Filters provide a mechanism for restricting
the overall set of documents that will be returned by a document service. For example, a filter
on a customer document on the Name field would return only those customers whose name
matches the filter.
 getChangedKeys method: Extends the getKeys method by adding a parameter that
contains a date and time. The values returned are the ones that changed in the root data
source or any child data source of the document after the specified date and time.

Custom services
Custom services in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 allow developers to expose any X++ logic through a
service interface. Custom services were supported in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, but the framework
support for some data types was limited. For any complex type, developers were required to write
custom serialization and de-serialization logic.

SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides standard attributes that can be set on the DataContract class
and its members to make them serialize and de-serialize data that is sent and received across a
network connection. Many predefined types, such as Collections and Tables, are also supported.
This feature enables you to expose any existing X++ class and its members as part of a service
operation without writing new code, just by setting a few attribute values. The syntax is similar to
using data contract attributes in WCF.

System services
System services are a new category of services that have been added in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.
These services are not customizable and are not mapped to any query or X++ code. These services
are written in managed code and hosted on the AOS at a fixed address specified in the server
configuration file.
Query Service
Query Service exposes APIs to execute any Application Object Tree (AOT)–defined or ad hoc client-
defined query against the system. It can also execute a dynamically generated query by using X++.
The results are returned as an ADO.NET DataSet object. This feature is especially useful in creating
Microsoft .NET Framework applications that use controls that can be bound to the returned result.
The URL for Query Service is as follows
net.tcp://<hostname:port>/DynamicsAX/Services/QueryService
where hostname and port are on the computer running the AOS.
The caller of Query Service needs to have appropriate permissions to retrieve all the requested
information. If certain fields in the requested set are not permitted, they are trimmed. If any data
source in the join list is not permitted, the service call fails with an error.
Metadata Service
Metadata Service enables clients to get information about some key metadata in the AOT. Clients can
get information about which queries or services exist in the AOT and various details about each
instance. This feature is useful in scenarios in which some metadata details need to be checked or
published by an application. Another important scenario is retrieving labels for different locales for
building and displaying custom user interfaces.
The URL for Metadata Service is as follows
net.tcp://<hostname:port>/DynamicsAX/Services/MetadataService
where hostname and port are on the computer running the AOS.
User Session Service
User Session Service allows the caller to retrieve information about the calling user. This includes
details such as the user’s company, timezone offset, and locale.
The URL for User Session Service is as follows:
net.tcp://<hostname:port>/DynamicsAX/Services/UserSessionService
where hostname and port are on the computer running the AOS.

How to distinguish between the three key service types

The following table provides more information about how to distinguish between the three key service
types, based on certain deployment and usage parameters.

SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012

 Document services Custom services System services

Service and data Auto-generated based on the Developer defined Fixed and cannot be updated
contracts query and wizard options

Deployment mode Ports Ports Stand-alone services running

on fixed address on AOS

Hosted on AOS/IIS AOS/IIS AOS only

Transport protocol Any supported adapter Any supported adapter Only net.tcp

Usage Use to expose a business entity Use to expose any Use always on utility services
through a service interface. custom business logic for any caller.
Used in integration. All AIF (even a business entity)
framework artifacts can be through a service
applied on these services. interface.
AIF framework support
for transforms is present
but not for pipelines,
schema constraints, or
others.

Exposing business entities as services

The document services framework provides a simple wizard flow to generate a document service from
the query that defines the business entity. This was the recommended way to create entity-based
services in the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009. With further enhancements in the document services
framework in supporting all new data-layer enhancements, this approach should still be the first
choice for anything entity-related that needs to be exposed through web services.
Custom services in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 were intended to be used for exposing any custom
logic through services. But exposing any complicated business entity was not possible because of the
lack of serialization and de-serialization support for service operation parameters. However, the
introduction of custom attributes in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 has made it easy to build a data-
contract–based service.
The following table contains information that can help you to decide whether to use document services
or custom data contract–based services.

Document services Custom services

Entity complexity The Document Service Generation Wizard Suitable when the entity complexity is
handles queries of any complexity and low. The schema can be written as a
size and generates the service data contract class and relevant data
seamlessly. member attributes set.
For example, some queries contain data If tables and relationships are used in a
sources and relationships that include data contract, then any feature around
dimensions, polymorphism, date-effective dimensions, polymorphism, and so on,
information, and so on. The document needs to be handled in code by the
framework handles these types of queries developer. This task may be time
seamlessly. consuming.

SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012

 Performance The incoming XML is passed to the Custom services use the underlying
requirements document services framework, which .NET XML Serializer to serialize and de-
parses the XML to validate the AxD serialize the XML into a data contract
schema, and then invokes the relevant object. No other logic is present.
operation. For simple entity schemas, this
The framework enables customization to approach will be faster than document
handle any complex pattern in the services. For complex schemas, you
underlying query. might need to write a lot of custom
code.

Integration All integration stack elements such as Schema constraints and value
requirements pipelines, transforms, and schema substitution are not honored for custom
constraints can be applied to document services.
services. However, transforms that convert
between the AifXMLMessage format and
other formats and pipelines for
preprocessing and postprocessing of
XML messages can be used.

Flexibility in Because a document service is derived The data contracts are written by
service contracts from a query, any change to the query developers and can be controlled to
object or its data source schema is likely make sure that the underlying schema
to change the service contract. changes do not have any effect on
This tight coupling between the service them.
contract and the underlying query-table The control that a developer has in
schema could be limiting for certain defining the service contracts can be
scenarios. good for service clients.

Microsoft Office Office add-in tools, shipped as a part of No preinstalled integration with Office
add-in support Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, have built- add-ins exists.
in support for consuming document
services for updating data.

Conclusion
The following table summarizes some of the key scenarios for all the service types in Microsoft
Dynamics AX 2012.

Services Common Scenarios

Use for exposing very simple business entities as a service.
Custom services Use for exposing any custom logic from Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Use for easily exposing business entities with varying complexity as a service.
Document services Use for supporting any medium to complex integration scenario involving entities.

Query Service Use for implementing read operations for any Microsoft Dynamics AX, ad-hoc, or
existing AOT query.

Metadata Service Use for retrieving certain key metadata information from Microsoft Dynamics AX.

User Session Service Use for retrieving any user session information.

SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012

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SERVICES IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012