Create Reports from Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Dynamics 365 Business Central and generating reports from Dynamics 365 Business Central data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Dynamics 365 Business Central, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Dynamics 365 Business Central data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Dynamics 365 Business Central. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

Configure Dynamics 365 Business Central Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Looker Studio, 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 Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Dynamics 365 Business Central data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.
👁 Create a new connection in Looker Studio

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account. 👁 Granting permissions to the Connector
   
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authenticating with CData Connect AI
   
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next
👁 Importing from Connections

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. D365BusinessCentral1) and click Next 👁 Selecting a Connection
   
6. Select a Table (e.g. Accounts) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue 👁 Selecting a Table
   
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
👁 Configuring column definitions

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.
👁 Visualizing Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Looker Studio

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 Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.