Advanced Portal Designer Documentation
Index

Overview

Advanced Portal Designer (APD) is a powerful extension for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that enables you to create beautiful, functional web portal experiences for your customers, vendors, and other business relations.

What is Advanced Portal Designer?

APD bridges the gap between your Business Central data and the web, allowing external users to interact with your ERP system through customized web interfaces. Whether you need a customer self-service portal, a vendor collaboration platform, or an employee mobile interface, APD provides the tools to build it.

Key Capabilities

Template-Based Design

APD uses a template-based approach where you create HTML files with special tags that dynamically pull data from Business Central. This means you can:

  • Design pixel-perfect web pages using standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
  • Embed dynamic Business Central data using simple <??> tags
  • Create responsive designs that work on any device

Multiple Action Types

APD supports various action types to handle different scenarios:

Action Type Purpose
File Serve HTML templates with dynamic data
Codeunit Execute custom AL code
Data Provide RESTful API access to tables
Script Run AL scripts directly
File Script Combine HTML templates with embedded AL
Report Generate and serve Business Central reports
Blob Serve binary data like images and documents

Robust Security

Security is built into the foundation of APD:

  • User authentication with password policies
  • Security profiles for role-based access
  • Table-level security filters
  • Integration with Auth0 and Microsoft Entra ID

Content Management

Beyond dynamic pages, APD includes a content management system:

  • Create and manage markdown content
  • Organize content by types and categories
  • Multi-language support
  • Security profile restrictions on content

How It Works

  1. Define Actions: Create actions that specify what content to serve and how
  2. Create Templates: Design HTML templates with APD tags for dynamic data
  3. Configure Security: Set up users, profiles, and security filters
  4. Deploy: Host the Azure WebApp component to serve your portal

Architecture Overview

┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│   Web Browser   │────▶│  Azure WebApp   │────▶│ Business Central│
│                 │◀────│   (Frontend)    │◀────│   (APD Extension)│
└─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘

The APD architecture consists of three main components:

  1. Web Browser: Where end users access your portal
  2. Azure WebApp: The middleware that handles HTTP requests and routes them to Business Central
  3. Business Central: Where APD processes requests, applies security, and returns data

Use Cases

APD is a toolkit, not a packaged application — what you build with it is up to you. Common things teams build with APD include:

  • Customer Portals: Let customers view orders, invoices, and account information
  • Vendor Portals: Enable vendors to check purchase orders and submit invoices
  • Employee Self-Service: Provide mobile-friendly access to internal data
  • Reporting Dashboards: Create custom reporting interfaces

Because APD exposes Business Central data and AL logic through configurable actions and templates, you can extend it to many other scenarios — for example, lightweight B2B order-entry pages or endpoints that accept data from external systems — by writing the corresponding actions, templates, and security configuration yourself.