Communication options with SharePoint and the world

Question

I have just started with SharePoint. Made a CRM system for our own company with help of the SharePoint suite found in Office365. This is mostly a 'getting to know sharepoint' exercise.

Now I'm starting to wonder: what are my options regarding talking to the world? We have a time tracking system, which supports API call's. We use MS Dynamic NAV for accounting, which also supports API call's.

Does sharepoint support API calls? Can I connect to the sharepoint SQL and work that way?

I'm actually thinking about connecting our custom made CRM system with our time tracking system. Can I easily populate/update items with data from REST api call's? Or should I program my own 'connector' which talks directly with sharepoint's SQL database?

Regards, SharePoint newbie

Answer 1

You don't interact with SharePoint's Database directly, you will rarely need to open SQL Server and see what's in there. You interact with SharePoint's data using SharePoint itself. So you will need to interact with lists and libraries that are responsible for your CRM system. SharePoint provides you with some ways to interact with it depending on where from you want to interact with it. So if you need to interact with it from an external system, you would easily use REST APIs, check this link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj860569%28v=office.15%29.aspx

You don't need to interact direclty with SharePoint database, that's not how SharePoint works.