The Application Integration Framework (AIF) is the method used by AX to communicate with external parties and applications. This includes services that are critical to the core of the AX functionality, such as printing reports.

There are three types of services in AX: system services, document services, and custom services.

System services are mentioned briefly, as it is important that they are activated; these services are created during the installation and must be running for many core features of AX to function.

Document services are the typical methods by which we communicate with external parties, for example, when a customer sends a sales order electronically. In this case, we are receiving (or sending) a formatted XML document that maps into a class structure in the AX server that has both data and business logic.

Document services have extensive features that allow communication with various (internal or external) parties without the need to modify the code. Often, we would write an import/export routine for each supplier or customer (as they use different document formats and schemas); one aim of the document services framework is to provide a functionality that allows us to perform a number of transforms (structure and value) to match the external party's requirements.

Creating new document services can be complicated; however, it is greatly simplified by using the supplied document services wizard that will guide the developer through the process. If you modify the tables in AX, they can be automatically added to the class structure and exposed to the AIF through this wizard.

AIF should be the primary method in which AX communicates with the outside world; for this reason, most of this chapter describes the various tasks in setting up and maintaining the document services.

Custom services are equivalent to writing a web service in C#. They are simple to write and perform quickly; although they cannot achieve the same functionality as document services, they also don't come with the same sort of overheads. If you are integrating into an internal system (for example, shop floor data collection), it is wise to consider custom services as your solution.

Our role in this process is to deploy and configure the service groups that the developer creates.