LornaJane

SugarCRM SOAP API

Tuesday, April 15. 2008

I don't know when SugarCRM, the open source CRM tool, first acquired a SOAP API but I missed it completely. I've used SugarCRM a few times, on quite a casual level, and only fell across the SOAP API because I needed it.

The first thing to note is that the SOAP API for SugarCRM is advertised as being incompatible with the PHP 5 SOAP client implementation, and they recommend you use nusoap. However this isn't true and I found it worked fine with PHP 5 in non-WSDL mode.

The second thing to note is that the documentation is rubbish. The best I could find is on their developer wiki and it isn't enough to write an application with. I had to do a fair amount of fiddling around on the server side to understand when I was making mistakes which isn't ideal for remote system calls! They do, however, have very good inline documentation so I ran PHPDocumentor over the file which had the stuff I was dealing with in it. I can't find an equivalent online so you can see my copy over here

Also if you go to your own sugar installation and append /soap.php to the URL, you will see some information there about formats plus a link to the WSDL. The WSDL isn't very human-readable but the top bit of it defines the custom data formats like "name_value_list" and shows you how to assemble them to submit to SOAP. If I can work out a good way of presenting that information I'll add it somewhere and link to it.

There will also be a follow-up with the script that worked for me. If this helps, or you have any questions, then add a comment please :)
Posted by LornaJane in php at 13:13 | Comments (8) | Trackback (1)
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PHP Rest Server (part 3 of 3)
PHP Rest Server (part 2 of 3)
PHP Rest Server (part 1 of 3)
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SugarCRM SOAP Data Types
Since SugarCRM only works with PHP5 in non-WSDL mode, I had to create all my calls from scratch. The SugarCRM documentation is somewhat minimal, as I may have mentioned, and I found I was mostly reading the WSDL to figure out how to format my SOAP calls.
Weblog: LornaJane
Tracked: Apr 24, 17:34

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Hey Lorna,

Love that sugar api snippet – any chance of seeing some sweet raw code as I have to do something very similar…

Thanks, Richard

#1 Richard Freeman (Homepage) on 2008-04-24 11:22 (Reply)

Richard: I’m in the middle of a post of the bits of code I used – will try to rustle something up for you!

#2 LornaJane (Homepage) on 2008-04-24 11:30 (Reply)

Hey Lorna,
I am .Net developer, and I would like to know are these SOAP APIs exposed by SugarCRM, are compatible with data types which we use in .Net?
I am in the intension of integrating a .Net application with SugarCRM. Till now I could add the the proxy generated on the basis of WSDL to my .net app and could invoke the web methods exposed.
But then I am struck, and I need your help badly.
Hoping for your reply.

#2.1 Gauri on 2008-05-15 05:12 (Reply)

Gauri: Yes, this should all work with the equivalent .NET data types, because SOAP is designed to be an interface between systems. The basics (string, integer, array) will be used as you usually would in .NET and then the datatypes listed in http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2008/SugarCRM-SOAP-Data-Types should help you with the complex types. Good luck!

#2.1.1 LornaJane (Homepage) on 2008-05-15 09:52 (Reply)

Fab, thanks Lorna! R

#3 Richard Freeman (Homepage) on 2008-04-24 13:47 (Reply)

Richard: Try http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2008/SugarCRM-SOAP-API-Examples for size

#4 LornaJane (Homepage) on 2008-04-24 17:31 (Reply)

Richard: And this (forgot I already had this as a draft!) http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2008/SugarCRM-SOAP-Data-Types

#5 LornaJane (Homepage) on 2008-04-24 17:36 (Reply)

Thanks for those LornaJ, will check them out tomorrow if I have time or next week – owe you one!

R

#6 Richard Freeman (Homepage) on 2008-04-24 22:13 (Reply)

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Comments

LornaJane about PHP Rest Server (part 3 of 3)
Sat, 06.09.2008 20:06
Andrew: As magicmonkey says, I ripped out all the extra bits and bobs to make these examples more readable. I think the point about using JSON as a transport is a very valid one t hough, many languages now have built-in support for working with JSON objects so this would be a valid choice. [...]


magicmonkey about PHP Rest Server (part 3 of 3)
Sat, 06.09.2008 17:28
Presumably, there’s no escaping / filtering because it’s con centrating on the ReST side of the service, not on the many other best-practice sides of PHP. XML is still quite wide ly used, and it’s potentially a better choice than JSON when (eg) exposing APIs at the edge of your application (i [...]


LornaJane about Acer Aspire One (and cosy)
Sat, 06.09.2008 17:23
Mark: I’m itching to try ubuntu on it but since the device i s so new I’m seeing people still having teething problems ge tting all the peripherals working – and I need this working for an event I’m going to next week so I’m holding my horses for now. Ubuntu with XFCE and the additional netbook [...]


Alan Knowles about PHP Rest Server (part 3 of 3)
Sat, 06.09.2008 01:19
please fix the example – escape output!!! – cant say how man y time’s i’ve seen commercial code with bugs like that.. JSON is now more commonly used to do this stuff.. XML is us ed mainly for compatibility with REALLY OLD systems now.. ;)


mark rushworth about Acer Aspire One (and cosy)
Fri, 05.09.2008 19:01
Nice cosy :) have you tried to install any of the other linu x os’s on it yet? i believe theres a nice version of ubuntu thats designed for netbooks if i deserve a slap for that then stick on slackware for extra l33tness :)


Cairo'sBlog about PHP Rest Server (part 3 of 3)
Fri, 05.09.2008 17:47
Olá, hoje no blog da Lorna Jane saiu a terceira e ultima par te de como fazer um REST Server em PHP. Aqui você pode ver o primeiro, segundo e terceiro artigo. Basicamente ele tem o mesmo comportamento do que um SOAP service. Ótimo guia para quem vem …


LornaJane about PHP Rest Server (part 1 of 3)
Wed, 03.09.2008 23:48
Rory: I didn’t abstract the request object but it would be a nice separation to do so. Michael: I haven’t read that b ut I will, thanks for the link. Calling formulaic method na mes seems to a feature of most implementations I’ve seen so far. I haven’t looked at the Zend Framework stuff – t [...]


LornaJane about Acer Aspire One (and cosy)
Wed, 03.09.2008 23:42
Michael: Hey there! Luckily I still have the usual selectio n of other devices at my disposal and this is just for stayi ng in touch when I’m out on the road. I haven’t had any maj or battles with it yet and it certainly weighs a lot less th an my work laptop!


Michael P-J about Acer Aspire One (and cosy)
Wed, 03.09.2008 21:26
I’ve recently acquired an EeePC 900 as a quick-fix to a term inally dead laptop. I’d have bought an Aspire One, but it wa sn’t out when I bought mine and I needed a new computer righ t away. Anyway, I can echo your frustrations with hardware i ssues and the default install of Linux not being all [...]