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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/dataverse-cloud-alteryx.rst

⇱ Prepare, Blend, and Analyze Microsoft Dataverse Data in Alteryx Designer (Connect AI)

Prepare, Blend, and Analyze Microsoft Dataverse Data in Alteryx Designer (Connect AI)

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Build workflows to access live Microsoft Dataverse data for self-service data analytics.

Alteryx is a software platform that allows people to work with data more easily. When paired with CData Connect AI, Alteryx provides instant access to Microsoft Dataverse data from your data automation processes. This article demonstrates how to connect to Microsoft Dataverse using Connect AI and work with Microsoft Dataverse data in Alteryx.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for Microsoft Dataverse, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to Microsoft Dataverse. This harnesses server-side processing to rapidly retrieve the desired Microsoft Dataverse data.

About Microsoft Dataverse Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Microsoft Dataverse (formerly the Common Data Service). Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Access both Dataverse Entities and Dataverse system tables to work with exactly the data they need.
  • Authenticate securely with Microsoft Dataverse in a variety of ways, including Azure Active Directory, Azure Managed Service Identity credentials, and Azure Service Principal using either a client secret or a certificate.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage Microsoft Dataverse entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

CData customers use our Dataverse connectivity solutions for a variety of reasons, whether they're looking to replicate their data into a data warehouse (alongside other data sources)or analyze live Dataverse data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).


Getting Started


Configure Microsoft Dataverse Connectivity for Alteryx

Connectivity to Microsoft Dataverse from Alteryx is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Microsoft Dataverse data from Alteryx, we start by creating and configuring a Microsoft Dataverse connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Microsoft Dataverse" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Microsoft Dataverse.

    You can connect without setting any connection properties for your user credentials. Below are the minimum connection properties required to connect.

    • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
    • OrganizationUrl: Set this to the organization URL you are connecting to, such as https://myorganization.crm.dynamics.com.
    • Tenant (optional): Set this if you wish to authenticate to a different tenant than your default. This is required to work with an organization not on your default Tenant.

    When you connect the Common Data Service OAuth endpoint opens in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions. The OAuth process completes automatically.

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

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Microsoft Dataverse data from Alteryx.

Connect to Microsoft Dataverse from Alteryx

To establish a connection from Alteryx Desktop to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server, follow these steps:

  1. Set up an account in Alteryx.
  2. Drag and drop a new Input Data tool onto the workflow. 👁 Image
  3. While the Input Data tool is selected, click Set Up a Connection in the navigation panel. A Data connections dialog appears.
  4. Click Data sources. Select Microsoft SQL Server > **Quick connect. 👁 Image
  5. In the Connection Manager dialog, click New.
  6. In the New Data Source dialog, enter the following information:
    • Data Source Name: Microsoft SQL Server ODBC DSN-less.
    • Driver: select ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server from the drop-down list.
    • Server: tds.cdata.com,14333
    • Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, CDS1).
    👁 Image
  7. Click Save. Then click Connect Credential.
  8. In Connections, enter the following:
    • Authentication Method: select Username and password.
    • Credential: select Create New Credential.
    • Credential Name: enter a name to identify the credential.
    • Username: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected].
    • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
  9. Click Test Connection. If successful, click Create and link.
  10. Connect with your credentials.
  11. In the wizard that opens, drag and drop the table to be queried in the Query Builder box. Select the fields by checking the boxes that you want to include in your query. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to your data source, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the connector. 👁 Image
  12. To further customize the dataset, you can open the SQL Editor and modify the query manually, adding clauses, aggregations, and other operations to ensure that you are retrieving exactly the data desired. 👁 Image
  13. With the query defined, you are ready to work with your data in Alteryx Designer. 👁 Image

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect AI today!