Data exchange via FTP (or SFTP/FTPs) continues to be widely used, especially in interfaces with legacy systems or 3PL.
Business Central does not natively provide solutions to manage connectivity via the FTP protocol. Considering that external components (e.g., .Net libraries) cannot be directly used in Business Central, additional tools are necessary.
Power Automate/Logic Apps
If the integration between Business Central SAAS and the FTP server is relatively simple and does not require managing configurations, logs, and the ability to schedule or trigger execution directly from Business Central, solutions based on Power Automate or Logic Apps can be used.
By leveraging connectors for SFTP or FTP, it is possible, for example, to transfer files to or from containers in Azure storage accounts, which can be directly read or written by Business Central.
File Transfer Manager
When using Business Central SAAS and more powerful functionalities directly within the system are required, the File Transfer Manager app can be used.
The app allows the configuration of all necessary connections to external FTP systems directly from Business Central, offering extensive customization options for connection and authentication modes. This enables the configuration, monitoring, and execution of FTP transfer functionalities directly from Business Central, without the need to manage external resources.
For instance, file transfers can be easily scheduled using the standard Job Queue functionalities. Communication is handled via an external component invoked directly from Business Central without requiring additional configurations, based on Azure Functions.
Complete documentation is available on the dedicated Memento documentation portal.
The app can be installed and configured directly from the Microsoft AppSource marketplace:
On Premise Data Proxy
When using a recent version of Business Central On-Premise, external libraries (e.g., for FTP connectivity) cannot be directly used to comply with the Universal Code Initiative.
In such cases, instead of maintaining external scripts outside of Business Central, the File Transfer Manager app can be used in combination with a dedicated service — On-Premise Data Proxy.
This service, installed on an On-Premise infrastructure server, is invoked by the app and provides FTP connectivity functionalities for Business Central, enabling the configuration, monitoring, and execution of FTP connections.
The service can also be used to access other local infrastructure resources, such as reading/writing to the file system and network paths, or direct read/write access to local SQL database instances.
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