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

⇱ Connect to Microsoft Dataverse Data from Filemaker Pro (Mac)

Connect to Microsoft Dataverse Data from Filemaker Pro (Mac)

👁 Mohsin Turki
Mohsin Turki
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use CData Connect AI to connect to and query live Microsoft Dataverse data from Filemaker Pro on Mac.

FileMaker Pro is a cross-platform relational database application that allows users to visually modify a database. When paired with CData Connect AI, FileMaker Pro gets access to live Microsoft Dataverse data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Microsoft Dataverse using Connect AI and query Microsoft Dataverse data in FileMaker Pro.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Microsoft Dataverse, allowing you to query data from Microsoft Dataverse without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Microsoft Dataverse, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Microsoft Dataverse data quickly.

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 FileMaker Pro

Connectivity to Microsoft Dataverse from FileMaker Pro is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Microsoft Dataverse data from FileMaker Pro, 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 Filemaker Pro.

Connect to Microsoft Dataverse from FileMaker Pro using Connect AI

To establish a connection from FileMaker Pro to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

Configure the ODBC Connection to CData Connect AI

  1. Download and install the Actual ODBC Driver for SQL Server (actualtech.com)
  2. Configure a DSN for the Actual ODBC driver by setting the following properties:
    • URL: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: Change the port from 1433 to 14333
    • Username: Your Connect AI email address
    • Password: the PAT you created earlier

Query Microsoft Dataverse from FileMaker Pro

  1. In the SQL Query Builder "SELECT" tab, select the columns to include as part of the query. 👁 Configuring the query by selecting columns.
  2. Open the "WHERE" tab of the SQL Query Builder and select "Show only selected columns."
  3. In "Table.Column,"" select a table and a column name.
  4. Set the "Operator" to =.
  5. Select "Column," and then select the same table and column name as "Table.Column."
  6. Click "Insert into SQL Query." 👁 Configuring the query by setting the WHERE clause.
  7. If no other modifications to the SQL query are required, click "Execute."

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!