Skip to main content

​
What Peppol Directory is

The Peppol Directory is a public search service that allows buyers and suppliers to find participants by name, country, and document types. Each participant registered in an SMP can optionally have a Business Card that describes the organisation and its capabilities. The Directory indexes these business cards and makes them searchable. Your SMP communicates with the Directory using the pdclient (Peppol Directory client) library.

​
Enabling Directory integration

Directory integration is disabled by default. Configure it in application.properties: 
# Enable the /businesscard REST API and Directory client
smp.directory.integration.enabled = false

# Automatically push business card changes to the Directory
smp.directory.integration.autoupdate = false
PropertyDefaultDescription
smp.directory.integration.enabledfalseWhen true, the /businesscard/{participantId} REST endpoints are active and business cards can be created and queried.
smp.directory.integration.autoupdatefalseWhen true, any change to a business card (create, update, delete) is automatically pushed to the configured Directory server. When false, you must trigger publishing manually from the Administration UI.
Both properties are also controllable at runtime through Administration > SMP Settings. The application.properties values serve as the initial defaults.

​
Directory name in the UI

The Administration UI labels Directory-related features using the webapp.directory.name property. Change this if your deployment uses a different Directory implementation. 
# Default label shown in the UI
webapp.directory.name = Peppol Directory

​
Business card management

A Business Card contains:
  • One or more entities (organisations), each with a name, country code, and optional geographic information.
  • A list of identifiers for the participant.
  • A list of document types the participant supports (derived from service metadata).
Business cards are managed through:
  • The REST API: PUT /businesscard/{participantId} and DELETE /businesscard/{participantId}
  • The Administration UI: Administration > Business Cards

​
Auto-publishing

When smp.directory.integration.autoupdate = true, phoss SMP calls the Peppol Directory REST API whenever a business card is saved or deleted. The Directory then re-indexes the participant. When auto-update is disabled, you can manually trigger a push to the Directory from the Administration UI or by calling the Directory API directly.
Enable auto-update in production so the Directory stays current whenever participants update their information. Keep it disabled in test environments to avoid polluting the pilot Directory with test data.

​
Directory client certificates

Communication with the Peppol Directory server uses mutual TLS. The pdclient.* properties configure the client certificate and truststore. By default these inherit from the SMP keystore: 
pdclient.keystore.type         = ${smp.keystore.type}
pdclient.keystore.path         = ${smp.keystore.path}
pdclient.keystore.password     = ${smp.keystore.password}
pdclient.keystore.key.alias    = ${smp.keystore.key.alias}
pdclient.keystore.key.password = ${smp.keystore.key.password}

pdclient.truststore.type     = ${smp.truststore.type}
pdclient.truststore.path     = ${smp.truststore.path}
pdclient.truststore.password = ${smp.truststore.password}
See Keystore and PKI for the full certificate configuration reference.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us