MS CRM 2016 Web API Introduction

Introduction :

Microsoft CRM 2016 introduced a new Web API concept. This will make it easier to create applications across a wide variety of platforms, devices, and programming languages.

You can perform all operations using HTTP requests with the Web API located at 

[organization uri]/api/data/v8.0/. The Web API implements OData version 4.0, an open standard for data access.

We can perform following operations using web API

            ·        Create

·         Update

·         Delete

·         Retrieve

·         Retrieve multiple( using odata query and fetch)

·         Execute Web API functions

·         Execute Web API Actions

·         Execute Web API Query Functions

Let’s check where the web API is located. I am using online ms crm 2016

   https://bareillly.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v8.0

 It showed me some JSON object like below

 {

  "@odata.context":"https://bareillly.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v8.0/$metadata","value":[

    {

      "name":"accountleadscollection","kind":"EntitySet","url":"accountleadscollection"

    },{

      "name":"accounts","kind":"EntitySet","url":"accounts"

    }

 Explanation :

  name : This is the name of the entity set.

  kind :  For the web API only Entity sets are listed.

  url :  It represents the part of the resource path to retrieve data for the entity.

How to use Web API:

We can use XMLHttpRequest object to perform all the above operation with Web API.

Example:   Create an Account using Web API:

function CreateRecord(clientURL,entityType,entityData)
{
var req = new XMLHttpRequest()

req.open("POST",encodeURI(clientURL + "/api/data/v8.0/" +entityType), true);
req.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
req.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=utf-8");
req.setRequestHeader("OData-MaxVersion", "4.0");
req.setRequestHeader("OData-Version", "4.0");
req.onreadystatechange = function () {
 if (this.readyState == 4 /* complete */) {
  req.onreadystatechange = null;
  if (this.status == 204) {
   var accountUri = this.getResponseHeader("OData-EntityId");
   console.log("Created account with URI: "+ accountUri)
  }
  else {
   var error = JSON.parse(this.response).error;
   console.log(error.message);
  }
 }
};
req.send(JSON.stringify(entityData));

}

// This function Creates an Account

function CreateAccountUsingWebAPI() {

debugger;
var entityType ="accounts"
var clientURL = Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl();
var Account ={};
Account["name"] ="My first Account by API";
Account["accountnumber"] = "9211";
Account["fax"] ="0581-231383";

CreateRecord(clientURL,entityType,Account)


}