====== Lime CRM Web Service ======

<alert type="warning">Lime CRM Web Service is set for end of life in Q2 2020 in favour of the [[integration:rest-apis:start|REST APIs]]</alert>

Lime CRM Web Service (LWS) is a web service for searching for, publishing and maintaining data in a Lime CRM database. The service is perfect for publishing Lime CRM data on intranets or public websites. You can also use the Lime CRM Web Service to update and delete existing data or to create new entries in the database when integrating with other systems.

Since every Lime CRM database has a unique structure LWS offers functionality to discover what a specific database looks like, e.g. which tables and fields exist. This metadata can be used, for example, to ensure that the same maximum permissible text length is used in a field both when inputting both in the Lime CRM client and on a web site.

===== How it works =====
LWS is based on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) which is a framework from Microsoft intended to make different communication protocols available in a unified model. The central concepts of WCF are services, endpoints, bindings and operations.

LWS publishes three different services:

  * DataService, for searching and retrieving data.
  * MetaDataService, for retrieving metadata about the database.
  * SessionService, for session management.

A service is made available to clients by defining one or more endpoints. An endpoint has a binding that determines the protocol that is supported and the address where the service should listen for calls. The endpoint also has a contract that specifies the operations that are supported.

===== Installation and configuration ======
Please refer to the following pages for more information on installing the web service:

  * [[installation|Installation]]
  * [[configuration|Configuration]]
  * [[upgrade|Upgrade]]

===== Developing for the web service =====
Please refer to the following pages for more information on developing applications that use the web service for integrating with Lime CRM:

  * [[using|Using the web service]]
  * [[queries|Querying the web service for data]]
  * [[updates|Updating data]]
  * [[documents|Working with documents]]
  * [[stored-procedures|Calling stored procedures]]
  * [[dataaccess|Writing .NET clients]]