Access Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Excel for the Web (Excel 365/Online) through Connect Spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel for the web represents a cloud-native iteration of Microsoft Excel. When combined with Connect Spreadsheets by CData, 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 Connect Spreadsheets and access and update live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Excel spreadsheets online.

Connect Spreadsheets is the easiest way to get all your live data into Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets - no more downloading, wrangling, and uploading files again. Just connect to your data, select the dataset you'd like to see, and import it into your spreadsheet.

Configure Dynamics 365 Business Central Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central from Excel is made possible through Connect Spreadsheets . 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 Spreadsheets, click Sources and 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 Create & Test

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

Access Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Excel for the web

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

1. Log into Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Office Add-ins. (If you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4.)
3. Search for Connect Spreadsheets and click "Get it now" to install the Add-in. 👁 Install the Add-In
   
4. Back in Excel, open the Data ribbon select and click the CData Connect Spreadsheets "Get Data" button. 👁 Open Add in panel
   
5. In the Add-In panel, click "Log in" to sign into and authenticate with your Connect Spreadsheets account 👁 Authorizing the Add-In
   
6. In the Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel, click Import 👁 Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel
   
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. D365BusinessCentral1), Table (e.g. Accounts), and Columns to import 👁 Connect Spreadsheets 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, Connect Spreadsheets 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
2. In the Connect Spreadsheets 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

A notification will appear when the update is complete.

Live Access to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data from Spreadsheets

New, 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.

Try Connect Spreadsheets and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your spreadsheet apps.