If you’ve scoured the net lately looking for information on using Microsoft Dynamics CRM with the popular enterprise data integration platform webMethods, you already know that the results are few and far between, and any information that one may find ends up being mostly unanswered questions in forums. Ugh the frustration! In today’s blog, we aim to fix that – at least somewhat! We’ll be answering some of your burning questions about webMethods and Dynamics CRM, so let’s get started!

Integrating Dynamics CRM with an application/API using webMethods is not terribly straight-forward for older versions of webMethods, but the process becomes much simpler when using the latest and greatest version. For example, webMethods 6.5, a popular older version, has significant issues with connecting to Dynamics CRM 2015/2016. This version cannot properly consume the SOAP-based legacy web service for CRM and also cannot consume the new RESTful API (Web API Preview) because it cannot consume RESTful resources.

The solution that must be implemented here comes in the form of an intermediate console application/service proxy. This console application must supply a WSDL for the methods it contains so that webMethods can connect to the console application via the SOAP protocol. This intermediate service proxy should then be coded to contain just the methods that your business anticipates requiring for whatever resource is being integrated with Dynamics CRM via webMethods. The service proxy must then reside on a server within your environment (or in a fancy cloud VM like Azure). This server must have open connectivity with Dynamics CRM Online or your on-premises environment and must also have open connectivity to the webMethods Integration Server.

If you are able to start with or upgrade to the latest version of webMethods (version 9.9 as of this post) then you should be all set to connect to either the CRM legacy SOAP API or the new REST web API preview without any issues.

Want to learn more about the web API in Dynamics CRM 2016? Check out our blog on the subject! As always, if you need additional help, we have extensive experience integrating CRM with web services using webMethods and would love to help you out! Contact our team today!

Happy CRM’ing!