Access Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central in your Connect AI instance and access and update live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Dynamics 365 Business Central, allowing you to easily access live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect AI Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Dynamics 365 Business Central, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

Configure Dynamics 365 Business Central Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central from Excel is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 Business Central connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Dynamics 365 Business Central" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

   To authenticate to Dynamics 365 Business Central, you must select an AuthScheme and provide the required properties (OAuth by default).

   All Methods

   Specify the . If you have multiple companies in your organization, you must also specify the to indicate which company you would like to connect to. does not need to be specified if you have only one company.

   Access Key

   To authenticate with an Access Key, set AuthScheme to "AccessKey" and provide the and properties.

   To obtain the and values, navigate to the Users page in Dynamics 365 Business Central and then click on Edit. The User Name and Web Service Access Key values are what you will enter as the and connection string properties. Note that the User Name is not your email address. It is a shortened user name.

   If you wish to authenticate through other methods, refer to the Help documentation.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics 365 Business Central Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Excel.

Access Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for CData Connect AI Add-In and install the Add-in. 👁 Install the Add-In
   
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect AI Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authorizing the Add-In
   
6. In the CData Connect AI panel in Excel, click Import 👁 CData Connect AI panel in Excel
   
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. D365BusinessCentral1), Table (e.g. Accounts), and Columns to import 👁 CData Connect AI panel in Excel
   
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit 👁 Choosing a Connection, Table, and Columns
   
9. Click Execute to import the data 👁 Executing the Query
   

Update Dynamics 365 Business Central Data from Excel

In addition to viewing Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Excel, CData Connect AI also lets you update and delete Dynamics 365 Business Central data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Dynamics 365 Business Central (your changes will be in red)
2. In the CData Connect AI Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected") 👁 Executing the update (Salesforce is shown).
   
4. Click Execute to push the updates to Dynamics 365 Business Central, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data from Cloud Applications

Now, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

👁 Imported data (Salesforce is shown)


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