Data Exchange Framework enhancements

I have made several enhancements to the Data Exchange Framework in NAV 2016.  Previously I wrote about text or a comma separated file import and about access to a local data file when creating a xml/json structure.  Both those enhancements are included in the objects attached to this post.

I have needed to handle JSON files where the actual data is not in the node value but in the node name.  To support this I added a boolean field to the Data Exchange Column Definition table (1223).

ConvertNodeNameToValue

To support this I added the same field to the Data Exchange Field Mapping table (1225) as a flow field, calculating the value from the definition table.

Codeunit 1203 is used to import XML and JSON files into the Data Exchange Field table.  I made two changes to the InsertColumn.  First, I added a parameter that accepts the node name and if the above switch is set to true I insert the node name into the column value instead of the node value.  The other change is that instead of finding only the first Data Exchange Column Definition I loop through all of them.  This allows me to create more than one definition based of the same XML node and therefore import into multiple columns from the same node.

To enable this scenario in the Currency Exchange Update Service I made changes to the Data Exchange Field Mapping Buffer table (1265) and the Data Exchange Setup Subform page.  More on that later.

A JSON file without a single root element will cause an error in the standard code.  Inspired my Nikola Kukrika on NAVTechDays 2015 I made changes to Codeunit 1237 utilizing the TryFunction to solve this problem.  To top this of I made a simple change to the Currency Exchange Rate Service Card page (1651) and table (1650) to allow JSON file type.

Having completed these changes I can now use a web service that delivers JSON in my Currency Exchange Rate Service.

CurrencyLayerJSON

Also inspired by Microsoft I added a transformation type to the Transformation Rule table (1237) to convert the Unix Timestamp (seconds since January 1st 1970 UTC) to a date.

UnixTimestamp

All objects and deltas are attached

DEF-Enhancements

One Reply to “Data Exchange Framework enhancements”

  1. Are you able to get the Currency Layer to work with NAV2017? I’m getting this error when I hit Preview… “A call to System.Xml.XmlDocument.SelectNodes failed with this message. Expression must evaluate to a node-set.”

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