XML APIs will be discontinued soon; transition to REST APIs

Questions (nl)
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1

Received an email from Exact stating:

XML APIs will be discontinued soon; transition to REST APIs

You are receiving this message because we have identified that your application is using XML APIs.

To create a more uniform and future-proof integration experience, we will gradually replace XML APIs with REST APIs in the near future. After this transition period, XML APIs will be discontinued.

When I look at the synchronisation/login screen of Invantive Control for Excel, I see both options listed.

Will this work properly once Exact no longer supports the XML APIs? Do we only need to untick the option to include XML APIs, or how will this proceed?

2

Exact has announced that the XML APIs of Exact Online will be phased out in favour of REST APIs, but a concrete end date and phase-out schedule are still missing: there is essentially only an announcement that there will be an announcement, while the REST APIs, just as around 2016 and 2021, are not yet feature-complete compared to the XML APIs. For Invantive products where you select tables yourself (such as Invantive Bridge Online), the advice is to replace XML tables with REST tables now.

Missing Features

As roughly in 2016 and 2021, the REST APIs are not yet feature-complete compared to the XML APIs:

For the XML APIs that do not have a REST equivalent yet, we are actively working to make them available as soon as possible. See the table below for currently available REST APIs.

Source: Exact Online Support Portal

In other words: for some, but not all, specifications of the XML APIs, an alternative is available.

Only Announcement of an Announcement

Based on the available information, it is not yet clear to Invantive when XML APIs will become obsolete and how that is phased in relation to available alternatives with the same information and performance.

At this moment, there is only an announcement that there will be an announcement:

Continue to regularly check the Breaking Changes page for announcements about new REST APIs, deprecation timelines, and other important updates.

Given the hundreds of XML APIs that Invantive users handle, Invantive follows Exact’s updates on this matter. Once Exact publishes concrete and complete information, this topic will be updated.

Preparatory Steps

For products (such as Invantive Bridge Online) where you determine which tables are used, the advice is to replace XML tables with REST tables.

For example, for Get My Report and Invantive Control for Excel, this is not an option on the user side. The choice and initiative for these products lie with Invantive.

On Invantive Cloud, in the Session I/Os screen, you can precisely see which tables your organisation uses. The Exact Online driver for Invantive UniversalSQL supports all available REST tables. With these session I/Os, you can check if there are tables left to replace and which ones.

3

We have received a similar email from Exact Online.

Is it correct that we don’t need to do anything for Invantive Control for Excel, and that Invantive will handle this for us as soon as the underlying REST APIs change, so that everything continues to work for us?

4

No, Invantive will first wait until Exact provides more clarity before making any decisions. Currently, it is merely an announcement that an announcement will be made. More information can be gleaned from the response above.

5

Er zijn de afgelopen drie maanden geen signalen of concretiseringen ontvangen over de aangekondigde aankondiging. Dit topic wordt daarom gesloten.