Pushbullet + C/AL + JSON Buffer = Easy notifications on multiple platforms

UPDATE 07-07-2018: Now with SMS functionality added.

Sometimes you just want to push a notification or send an SMS the cheap way. Here is how you could do it in Dynamics NAV 2018 via C/AL with the use of Pushbullet, “JSON Buffer”, “JSON Management” and “HTTP Web Request Mgt”. This can pretty easily be converted to AL for use in Business Central.

In this example I will use Pushbullet – a cross-platform notification system which you can read more about here.

A quick summary of what you will see:

GET and POST calls to a HTTP Web service from C/AL.
Import JSON using Table 1236 JSON Buffer.
Export/generating JSON using Codeunit 5459 JSON Management.
Sending Pushbullet notifications from C/AL.

The Pushbullet API is well documented, compared to JSON Buffer and JSON Management (*Wink wink* Microsoft). Most of this is based on a lot of trial and error, sprinkled with Google.

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How to begin using .Net in C/AL?

So you have a problem and you have found a package on Nuget that might just fix it for you in no time. Where to start?

Lets presume I want a QR generator, I want to create custom QR codes for documents or items. It could be a link to the data sheet, and you want it on your company web page or Item card for easy access for technicians.

They might find the item on a PC but need the drawings later at the machine. So they find it and scan the code, which triggers a download of the PDF data sheet, so they have it offline. There are multiple uses for this. I am not here for the why, just the how.

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NAV as a MQTT client

Borrowed fro https://pagefault.blog/2017/03/02/using-local-mqtt-broker-for-cloud-and-interprocess-communication/

What is MQTT (Message Queues)? Well I could write up and down about just that subject, but other people have done that before and are properly better at explaining it than me. Google it (Heck use Bing if you are feeling lucky today).

Lazy? Okay then. It is a small footprint protocol on top of the TCP/IP protocol and is for sending information. Mostly used on embedded devices (IoT) where CPU power is limited. You can not have an Intel octa-core powerhouse, when it has to run for a year on a coincell battery.

REST is not an option, it is way to resource heavy for simple sensor data.

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