Web Service

If you have some basic programming knowledge, you can use the XFRACAS web service in your own custom application to insert XML files into the import queue, along with other related functions.

What's Changed? The 2019 service differs from the 2018 service in several ways. In addition to implementing a new base URL, we've changed the names of existing functions and added new ones. Note that, although we plan to keep adding new functions to the service in the future, we do not expect the base URL or names of existing functions to change again.

Download a Sample Application

You can download a sample application that demonstrates how to use the web service functions.

XfracasImportExample (*.zip)

Using the Service

On the web server, IIS must be configured with HTTP Activation enabled for the .NET Framework. See the Implementation Guide (*.pdf).

The following functions are available. For parameters and code examples, see XFRACAS XML Import Business Logic (*.pdf) and the sample application.

importxml - Inserts an XML file (which may contain data for one or multiple records) into the XFRACAS import queue. This is equivalent to clicking Add on the XFRACAS Data Import page. It uploads an XML byte array and returns a UUID that identifies the file that was added to the queue (the import record id).

NOTE: The maximum size for files that can be inserted into the queue by the web service is set via the XFRACAS Admin utility on the web server (on the Settings page of the XFRACAS Configuration File window).

importstatus - Retrieves the status of a previous importxml request. Information about the import includes the status. A status of 1 indicates an Error, 2 indicates the import is in the Inbox, 3 indicates the data has been Processed. Optionally, the error and import logs can be included in the response.
processimports - Starts the import process, which attempts to process all files in the import queue for all entities. This is equivalent to clicking Process on the Data Import page. To view the processing status of the files, check the Processed and Error logs on the website or pass the integer result from this method to the importstatus method’s id parameter.
importmetrics - Inserts up to 3 time/usage values reported on a particular date for a particular serialized system. This is equivalent to clicking Update System Hours in the customer support record for a serialized system. (See Time Metric Calculations.)
entities - Returns an array of the entities that are accessible to the user the application is running as. The entity id (eid) is a required parameter for other functions.
issueid - Returns the IssueTypeID for a specific option in a lookup list, given the name of the list and either the description or code for the option. This can be used when creating new XML files. For example, in incident records, the “Incident State” and “Incident State Closed” lookup lists contain the valid options for the <status> element in the XML file. (See Managing Lists.)
issues - Returns a list of options for a specific lookup list, given at least the name of the list.
parts - Returns a list of parts that contain a specified part name and/or part number. If the sn parameter is set, it searches for a serialized part.
incident - Returns a limited set of data about a specific Incident.
logexc - Writes exception information to the XFRACAS diagnostics log. The body of the request must contain a VB Exception object serialized as JSON (see the example application for a demonstration). (See Diagnostics Log.)
logmsg - Writes a message to the XFRACAS diagnostics log.

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