The No-Code API Factory for Business Central

Data Braider allows you to create Custom API Endpoints for Business Central in seconds.

Logo for Data Braider, with a brain like shape made of connected nodes, flowing out to a pair of wires. Below the name is the company name, Spare Brained Ideas

What does Data Braider do?

In short? Data Braider allows you to configure your own API endpoints for easy access to Business Central data without the need to develop Custom APIs. Take a look here:

Time and Cost Efficiency

One of the biggest hindrances in the path of business growth is the escalating costs and lengthy timelines associated with developing API endpoints. With Data Braider, we’re flipping the script. Our product tackles head-on these two critical business challenges of cost and time efficiency.

API endpoint creation comes with its financial commitments – not just the initial development, but the ongoing costs of maintenance and necessary alterations. Our solution negates these costs, putting you in charge and eliminating the need for specialist resources for endpoint tasks.

Moreover, time is a non-renewable resource, that’s why its management plays a crucial role in the business world. Lengthy developmental timelines can delay strategic initiatives and prolong the wait to realize business benefits. Our point-and-click functionality makes creating and maintaining endpoints a matter of minutes, not days or weeks. This means greater productivity and faster time to market your services without being bottlenecked by API management.

Empowered Control

With Data Braider, we put control back into your hands – granting you full access and management of your own data. It’s not just about simplifying API endpoint usage; it’s about empowering you to establish your own data narrative.

Our product gives you complete control over your endpoints, meaning you have the freedom to expose your own data the way you see fit – be that for reporting purposes, integration, or advanced analytics. No more waiting for developers to construct and manipulate API endpoints to fit your requirements.

With the ability to manage your own endpoints, you unlock seamless connectivity with data analysis tools like PowerBI or Power Automate. This not only enhances your data interpretation capabilities, but also significantly improves decision-making, business intelligence, and strategic planning. Our goal is to bridge the gap between you and your data, fostering a self-serving data landscape.

Embrace Simplicity

Of course you can code and create APIs for Business Central. Sometimes that’s still the best option! But, many times, it’s just a line item cost in a much larger project or solution. If you think of our projects as building homes for our customers, APIs are plumbing – vital, but not exciting, and certainly not fun to pay for.

Using Data Braider, you can rely on being able to quickly generate basic APIs with a few clicks. Rather than taking the time to create the basics, you can build off Braider’s feature-rich functionality to implement the solutions you need. And when you’re asked to provide validations, defaulting, or constraints on data coming into BC, you’ll be able to impress with what you can do through easy configuration.

Wouldn’t you rather be building more interesting code?

Unlock Efficiency

In our Business Central careers as developers, we’re always asked to do more. More code, more solutions, learn more technology, take on more responsibility. If you’re lucky, you’re in an organization that has good structures around pipelines and deployment, not having to install solutions manually each time you update a field.

And then someone asks you “Why didn’t this order come in?”

Data Braider helps with not only the configuration and setup, but also means that when configurations change, it’s instant.

And when you’re trying to (inevitably) figure out why something isn’t working, wouldn’t you want to be efficient by seeing exactly what’s coming in and out of your API in detail?

Connect with Ease and No Expertise

Enhance your digital toolkit without any learning curve. Data Braider brings the power of Business Central integration to organizations and specialists without requiring you to be a seasoned BC developer.

Our product provides an intuitive gateway to Business Central. With just a few clicks, you can create and maintain API Endpoints, making the connectivity to the Business Central world as seamless as possible. No need for intensive training or deep dive into the world of BC development — you can start enhancing your services with the incredible benefits of Business Central from day one.

Beyond being a new service line, this capacity empowers you to give the best to your clients. Whether you’re a web design firm, an expert in Power Platform, or a data integration specialist, you can seamlessly connect your solutions to Business Central, offering them new possibilities without investing in extensive BC learning and development.

Plug-and-Play/Repeatable Solutions

Data Braider caters to the agility your work demands. We understand the need for nimble, repeatable solutions in the field of data integration and design. To that end, our product is primed for plug-and-play implementations — sidestepping complex integration hurdles to accelerate your project timelines.

With Data Braider, setting up API endpoints becomes a painless process. It’s nearly a set-it-and-forget-it operation, allowing you to reuse your designs for multiple clients. It requires little tinkering and maintenance over time, providing a consistent, reliable environment for your solutions.

Moreover, the inherent repeat-ability that Data Braider brings to the table can be a game-changer for your services. Your successful and efficient solutions can be replicated and tailored for individual client needs, ensuring the roll-out of proven, high-quality integrations time and again. Drive repeatable success and scalability with Data Braider.

Invest Smartly

In the quest to deliver top-of-the-line software solutions while circumventing unnecessary expenses, a smart investment like Data Braider can be a game-changer. By offering a simple, intuitive, and cost-effective way to build API endpoints for your ERP system, our tool exempts your business from making sizable time and monetary investments into creating standalone API connectors.

Data Braider allows you to cut through the complexity of endpoint management and focus on enhancing the core functionality of your software. By reducing the legwork of building and maintaining API endpoints for your solution, it streamlines your workflow, accelerating your product development cycles. You’ll not only lower your costs but also gain unmatched speed to market.

Investing smartly means prioritizing, and with Data Braider, your resources can be redirected towards refining key components of your offering. Instead of wrestling with complex integration systems, you’re free to innovate, enhance, and deliver, all while maintaining seamless connectivity with your ERP system.

Expand Value through Interoperability

Interoperability is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for software applications. It’s an essential characteristic that significantly amplifies the utility, user appeal, and, ultimately, the value of an ISV solution. By using Data Braider for your endpoints instead of developing your own, you gain powerful compatibility with the vast ecosystem of AppSource solutions available for Business Central.

By ensuring your software synchronizes seamlessly with other applications, Data Braider amplifies its potential use cases and application breadth. It significantly enhances your customer proposition by being integrable with a wide range of applications, making your solution a more versatile tool for potential clients.

Moreover, it eliminates the daunting barriers of integrating another solution with your software. Users have the freedom to populate their workflow with the best solutions available, including yours, without having to worry about compatibility issues.

Increasing the interoperability of your software not only adds another dimension of flexibility to your solution, but it also positions your software within a larger, comprehensive network of services. An investment in Data Braider is an investment in expanding your product’s market value and customer utility.

Feature Details

Read Endpoints:

Read end points support a wide array of features that are quick and simple to configure, such as:

  • Add fields from any Business Central tables, including ISV and PTE customizations
  • Enforce server-side filtering to only expose certain records
  • Allows per-request filtering to focus on the data needed
  • Supports complex FlowField scenarios (such as Item Inventory by location and variant)
  • Easily supports pagination to tune for performance
  • Set additional per-field settings (such as Time Zones for DateTimes)
  • Business Central Permissions and Security Filters still apply, of course

Write Endpoints

Write end points support a wide array of features that are quick and simple to configure, such as:

  • Expose fields from any Business Central tables, including ISV and PTE customizations
  • Choose between error handling modes, per-record or batch, to control what happens if an error occurs in data submission
  • Detailed control settings on fields, such as
    • Include as read-only (in the response)
    • Default/required values
    • Mandatory value checking
  • Granular control over which types of writing are allowed, such as
    • Insert
    • Modify
    • Delete

Auditing & Diagnostics

Creating APIs is great, but when it’s time to use them and there are any challenges, how easily can you solve the problems?   With Data Braider end points, you get:

  • Event Logging controls per endpoint
  • Detailed Event Logs include the raw JSONs of data, both in and out, for faster troubleshooting
  • Detailed error messages are sent in responses, providing clearer resolution
  • Telemetry can be enabled and tuned per endpoint, allowing easier monitoring focused on the information you need

Integration Helpers

Creating the API end points is only part of the story.  Integration partners and consumers of the API data need to be able to quickly and easily learn how to use the information.

To that end, Data Braider supports several integration helpers out of the box:

  • Generate a Postman collection for all your end points to easily send to developers working against end points
  • Generate the PowerBI Query necessary to consume and present data directly from Data Braider end points
  • Generate a Power Automate scoped set of steps to make end point consumption as simple as pasting

Rapid Deployment Features

Because Data Braider end points are a configuration for an AppSource app, once you have configured the end points you need for your solution, you can export the configuration.

Then, in another environment, you can simply install the Data Braider app, import your configuration, and your API is already live.

No maintenance, no deployment time means you can easily and repeatably deploy your solutions.  You can even allow customers to self-service or manage this deployment through simple pipelines.

Additionally, any end point changes you make are instant, making fine tuning your deployment very simple.

Pricing

Data Braider is available in a variety of licensing models:

  • On Premises Annual subscriptions through Microsoft partners, list price of €3600
  • Cloud Annual subscriptions with unlimited API call usage through Spare Brained Ideas, list price of €3600, available for purchase here: Data Braider Annual License Shop
  • Monthly subscriptions billed based on usage through Spare Brained Ideas (coming soon, H1 2024)

Partners and ISVs

Because Data Braider end points are a configuration for an AppSource app, once you have configured the end points you need for your solution, you can export the configuration.

Then, in another environment, you can simply install the Data Braider app, import your configuration, and your API is already live.

No maintenance, no deployment time means you can easily and repeatably deploy your solutions.  You can even allow customers to self-service or manage this deployment through simple pipelines.

Additionally, any end point changes you make are instant, making fine tuning your deployment very simple.

If you are a reseller and wish to receive margins on your sales of Data Braider, reach out to our team to sign up as a Reseller Affiliate.

Install it now and Try it out!

If you’re on Cloud, you can install it into your Sandbox right away and try it with no activation or cost at all.

Need a little more information?

We have you covered. Our Data Braider Documentation site has lots of information about how it works and how to use it.