The MuleSoft Anypoint Platform enables the building, deployment, and management of APIs and integrations, facilitating seamless connectivity across applications and systems. When combined with CData Connect AI, it provides access to Microsoft Dataverse data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article explains how to use CData Connect AI to create a live connection to Microsoft Dataverse and how to connect and access live Microsoft Dataverse data from the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform.
Prerequisites
Before configuring and using MuleSoft with CData Connect AI, you must first connect a data source to your CData Connect AI account. For more information, see the Connections section.
Additionally, you need to generate a Personal Access Token (PAT) on the Settings page. Be sure to copy it down, as it serves as your password during authentication.
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 MuleSoft
Connectivity to Microsoft Dataverse from MuleSoft is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Microsoft Dataverse data from MuleSoft, we start by creating and configuring a Microsoft Dataverse connection.
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Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection
- Select "Microsoft Dataverse" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source
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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)
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Click Save & Test
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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.
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Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
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On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
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Give the PAT a name and click Create.
👁 Creating a new PAT
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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 Mulesoft.
Connecting to CData Connect AI
Follow these steps to establish a connection from Mulesoft to CData Connect AI through the JDBC driver:
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Download and install the CData Connect AI JDBC driver.
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Open the Integrations page of CData Connect AI.
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Search for and select JDBC.
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Download and run the setup file.
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When the installation is complete, the JAR file can be found in the installation directory (inside the lib folder).
- Log into Mulesoft Anypoint Studio or launch the desktop application.
- Create a new Mulesoft project.
👁 Create a new MuleSoft project
👁 Add the project name
The new project appears in a project folder.
👁 The new project is created
- In the Mule Palette located on the right, drag an HTTP Listener to the Message Flow area.
👁 Drag the HTTP Listener to the Message Flow area
- Click on the HTTP Listener to configure it.
👁 Click on the HTTP Listener to configure it
- Click the + sign on the right of Connector configuration. The HTTP Listener config dialog appears.
- Configure the HTTP Listener, providing a Port on which to query your data, and click OK.
👁 Add the port number to configure the HTTP Listener
- Provide a path on which to perform the actions. The HTTP Listener is now configured.
👁 Provide a path to perform the actions
- In the Mule Palette on the right, type database in the search bar.
👁 Search for database in Mule Palette search bar
- Drag the database operation you want to perform to the Message Flow area. For this example, we choose Select.
👁 Drag the database operation in the Message Flow area
- Select Generic Connection from the Connection dropdown in the Database Config dialog.
👁 Select Generic Connection from the Connection dropdown
- Click the Configure button to configure the JDBC driver. Select Use local file from the drop-down list.
👁 Select Use local file from the dropdown
- Locate the CData Connect AI JAR file from the JDBC driver installation and click OK.
👁 Add the CData Connect AI JAR file path
- Provide the following information:
- Click Test Connection.
👁 Click on Test Connection
- If the connection is successful, provide the SQL Query Text in the editor. You can see the table metadata on the right side in the Output tab.
👁 Write the SQL Query
- In the Mule Palette, drag Transform Message to the Message Flow area.
👁 Drag Transform Message to the Message Flow area
- Click Transform Message to configure it. Change the Output as follows:
👁 Configure Transform Message
- Save your project and run it. In the console, Mulesoft starts initializing the dependencies.
👁 Save and Run the project
- Once you see the message, "Message source 'listener' on flow your_project_name successfully started", you can start querying your data at the endpoint you provided.
👁 Check for the 'Message source 'listener' on flow your_project_name successfully started' message to get started
- Query to check out the data using the Postman application (as shown below).
👁 Send an API request from Postman to check the Microsoft Dataverse data
SQL Access to Microsoft Dataverse Data from Cloud Applications
Now you have a direct connection to live Microsoft Dataverse data from MuleSoft Anypoint Platform. You can create more connections to ensure seamless data flow, automate business processes, and manage APIs - all without replicating Microsoft Dataverse data.
To get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Microsoft Dataverse) directly from your cloud applications, explore the CData Connect AI.
