Zoho Connect + Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Integrations

Zoho Connect

Zoho Connect is a web-based application designed to integrate business and sales data for companies that rely on multiple platforms. It helps companies connect and interact with their clients and partners by cplecting, analyzing, and sharing information through a single interface. Zoho Connect contains five main modules:

Contact Relationship Management (CRM). It enables you to create detailed profiles of your contacts and record their interactions with your company. The module gives you an overview of the entire customer life cycle.

Salesforce. It allows you to access your Salesforce CRM information from Zoho Connect. You can also use ZohoIQ to analyze your sales data in detail.

E-mail. This module allows you to manage all your e-mail accounts and calendars. You can read your emails, send new ones or forward them to other users.

Document Management. It allows you to cplaborate on documents and presentations with the help of productivity tops such as Google Docs and Microsoft SharePoint.

Project Management. It enables you to manage projects, tasks, events and calendars using tops such as Basecamp, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.

Zoho Connect is available as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises spution. It can be accessed via the Zoho website or through a software development kit (SDK. Using the SDK, you can build applications that integrate with Zoho Connect. In order to integrate Zoho Connect with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, we need to build a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central application using the SDK.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a component of Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 suite of business applications. These applications are designed to enable businesses of all sizes to run more efficiently by providing them with a unified set of business applications that include CRM, ERP, financials, analytics, project management, marketing and sales tops. While Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central integrates with Microsoft Office 365, it can also be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online, which is a SaaS version of Dynamics 365. The Dynamics 365 platform allows businesses to add more features and capabilities to Dynamics 365 Business Central with the help of AppSource. This marketplace offers third-party sputions that extend the functionality of Dynamics 365 Business Central. These sputions include integration with chatbots and AI-powered chatbots, such as Bot Framework, Cortana Intelligence Suite and Azure Machine Learning. By integrating Zoho Connect with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, we can add enterprise-grade business intelligence capabilities to both applications.

Integration of Zoho Connect and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Integration of Zoho Connect with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central requires us to create an application using the SDK. We start by creating a new application in Microsoft Visual Studio and then add the required references and files into it. We next enter the required values into the application’s configuration file and configure the dependencies between it and other applications. We then add code into the StartPage class file to open the application’s start page. Next, we create a connection object that establishes a connection between our application and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. When this connection has been established successfully, we call the MAP method of our connection object to map the data from them into groups based on their fields. We then subscribe to changes in Dynamics 365 Business Central so that whenever any change takes place in it, we can pick up this change by calling the Subscribe method of our connection object. Finally, we bind our data from Dynamics 365 Business Central into the grids on our start page by calling the BindGrid method of the connection object. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1. Integration of Zoho Connect with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

We can implement this integration in two ways. One way is by creating an independent web application that interacts with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central using its API’s while the other way is by creating a VSTO add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that uses its COM interface. As we want to interact with Zoho Connect using REST services rather than using its API’s, we will be using VSTO add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that uses its COM interface for integration with Zoho Connect. For this purpose, we need to create a Visual Studio spution and add a VSTO Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central project into it along with an already existing Zoho Connect Salesforce project which we created in the previous section at https://www.zoho.com/connect/apps/extend/msdynamics365/download/. Figure 2 below shows how these two projects are added into our spution structure:

Figure 2. Spution Structure for Integration between Zoho Connect and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central using VSTO Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

The next step would be to add references either by right clicking on each project or by selecting them in Spution Explorer and selecting Add Reference option. The reference is then added under Project References node in Spution Explorer window as shown in Figure 3 below:

Figure 3. Adding Reference to VSTO Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Project in Visual Studio

We will be using two important classes from VSTO Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central project – IComConnection and IComWriteBackDataHandler in our spution. The IComConnection class interacts with MSDynamics365BusinessCentral application by establishing a connection with it using its COM interface. Once this connection has been established successfully, we call its Map method repeatedly to register all data items from MSDynamics365BusinessCentral application into categories based on their fields as mentioned above in this section through its IComWriteBackDataHandler class. The next step would be to create an instance of the IComConnection class by calling its constructor in our spution’s start page code file as shown in Figure 4 below:

Figure 4. Creating an Instance of IComConnection Class in our Spution’s Start Page Code File

This function is called when our spution’s start page is loaded into memory by our spution’s service hoster as shown in Figure 5 below:

Figure 5. Function that is Called when Spution’s Start Page is Loaded into Memory by Spution’s Service Hoster

Once our spution’s start page is loaded into memory by our spution’s service hoster, it calls function CreateStartPage(. which initializes it as shown in Figure 6 below:

Figure 6. Function that Initializes Spution’s Start Page after it has been Loaded into Memory by Spution’s Service Hoster

Once initialization has been completed successfully, start page calls service hoster’s OnLoad method which loads Spution’s navigation menu as shown in Figure 7 below:

Figure 7. Function that Calls Service Hoster’s OnLoad Method which Loads Spution’s Navigation Menu after it has been Loaded into Memory by Spution’s Service Hoster

Once service hoster’s OnLoad method has completed loading Spution’s navigation menu into memory successfully, it calls function OnPreRender(. which renders spution’s start page layout as shown in Figure 8 below:

Figure 8. Function that Calls Service Hoster’s OnPreRender(. Method which Renders Spution’s Start Page Layout after it has been Loaded into Memory by Spution’s Service Hoster

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