Set Up a Document Exchange Service
As part of the Data Exchange Framework, you can exchange sales and purchase documents with your trading partners without extra steps, such as attaching the documents to email messages as PDF files. For example, when you're ready to invoice a customer, you can post the invoice and send it for payment as a file that your customer can receive in their business management application. For more information, see Exchanging Data Electronically.
Note
Setting up a document exchange service for Business Central on-premises requires some additional steps for authorization. For more information, see Settings for Business Central On-Premises.
Connecting with Trading Partners
Exchanging electronic documents requires a connection to your trading partners. To make it easy to create a secure connection, Business Central online is configured to use the Business Central Integration app. The app is available on the Tradeshift App Store, and all you and your business partners need to do is create a Tradeshift account and then enable the app. The Business Central Integration app comes in production and sandbox versions. For example, using the sandbox version is good for testing the document exchange. You can switch between production and sandbox versions by turning the Sandbox toggle on or off on the Doc. Exch. Service Setup page. When you do, the information on the Service FastTab is updated for you.
Alternatively, if you want to use another service, you must provide information to make the connection. For more information, see To connect to a document exchange service.
To connect to the Business Central Integration app on Tradeshift
You can quickly create a Tradeshift account and get started with the Business Central Integration app from the Doc. Exch. Service Setup page. Choose either the Activate App link in the notification or the App URL field to go to the app in the Tradeshift app store. On the Login page for Tradeshift, either sign in or sign up.
Note
After you sign in to your Tradeshift account, the site might not take you to the page where you activate the app. To do that, you can click the link on the Doc. Exch. Service Setup page in Business Central again to go directly to the app.
If you decide to stop using the Business Central Integration app, you should disable it in the Tradeshift app store.
To connect to a document exchange service
If you prefer to use another document exchange service, you must provide some information to connect to the service.
Choose the
icon, enter Document Exchange Service Setup, and then choose the related link.Fill the fields as described in the following table.
Field Description User Agent Enter text that can be used to identify your company in document exchange processes. Enabled Specify whether the connection to the service is enabled.
Note: When you enable the service at least two job queue entries are created to send and receive electronic documents. When you disable the service, the job queue entries are deleted.Sandbox Specify whether you are connecting to a sandbox version of the document exchange service. Sign-up URL Specify the web page where you sign up for the document exchange service. App URL Choose the link to open the app store and turn the Business Central Integration app on or off. Service URL Specify the address of the document exchange service, which will be called when you send and receive electronic documents. Sign-in URL Specify the URL for the page you use to sign in to the document exchange service. This is the page where you enter your company’s user name and password. Note
Your sign in credentials are automatically encrypted. You cannot turn off encryption.
Note
If you cannot connect to the document exchange service because of an authorization issue, it might be because Business Central cannot automatically renew the access token. For example, this might occur if you have not used the service for some time. You can renew the token manually by using the Renew Token action.
Settings for Business Central On-Premises
To connect Business Central on-premises, you must create an app on the Tradeshift App Store. When you do, use the redirect URL from the Redirect URL field on the Document Exchange Service Setup page. After you register your app, Tradeshift will provide a client ID and a client secret. In Business Central, enter those values on the Authorization FastTab on the Document Exchange Service Setup page.
If you prefer to store the app ID and secret in a different location, you can leave the Client ID and Client Secret fields blank and write an extension to fetch the ID and secret from the location. You can provide the secret at runtime by subscribing to the OnGetClientId and OnGetClientSecret events in codeunit 1410 "Doc. Exch. Service Mgt."