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

⇱ Create Microsoft Dataverse-Connected Nintex Workflows

Create Microsoft Dataverse-Connected Nintex Workflows

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to Microsoft Dataverse Data from Nintex Workflow Cloud and build custom workflows using live Microsoft Dataverse data.

Nintex Workflow Cloud is a cloud-based platform where you can design workflows to automate simple or complex processes using drag-and-drop interactions — without writing any code. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Microsoft Dataverse data for business applications. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Microsoft Dataverse in Connect AI and build a simple workflow from Microsoft Dataverse data in Nintex.

CData Connect AI provides a pure, cloud-to-cloud interface for Microsoft Dataverse, allowing you to build workflows from live Microsoft Dataverse data in Nintex Workflow Cloud — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Nintex allows you to access data directly using SQL queries. 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 quickly return the requested 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 Nintex

Connectivity to Microsoft Dataverse from Nintex is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Microsoft Dataverse data from Nintex, 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 Nintex Workflow Cloud.

Connect to Microsoft Dataverse from Nintex

The steps below outline creating a new connection to Microsoft Dataverse data from Nintex (via Connect AI).

  1. Log into Nintex Workflow Cloud
  2. In the Connections tab, click "Add new"
  3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the connector and click "Connect" 👁 Adding a new SQL Server Connection
  4. In the SQL Server connection wizard, set the following properties:
    • Connection Name: Connect AI
    • Username: a Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Password: the Connect AI user's PAT
    • Database Host: tds.cdata.com:14333
    • Database Name: the Microsoft Dataverse connection (a.g., CDS1)
    👁 Configuring the Connection to Connect AI
  5. Click "Connect"
  6. Configure the connection permissions and click "Save permissions" 👁 Configuring permissions and saving the Connection

Create a Simple Microsoft Dataverse Workflow

With the connection to CData Connect AI configured, we are ready to build a simple workflow to access Microsoft Dataverse data. Start by clicking the "Create workflow" button.

Configure the Start Event Action

  1. Click the start event task and select the "Form" event
  2. Click "Design form"
  3. Drag a "Text - Long" element onto the Form and click the element to configure it
    • Set "Title" to "Enter SQL query"
    • Set "Required" to true
  4. Drag a "Text - Short" element onto the Form and click the element to configure it
    • Set "Title" to "Enter desired result column"
    • Set "Required" to true
👁 Designing the Start event Form

Configure an "Execute a Query" Action

  1. Add an "Execute a query" action after the "Start event: Form" action and click to configure the action
  2. Set "SQL Script" to the "Enter SQL Query" variable from the "Start event" action
  3. Set "Column to retrieve" to the "Enter desired result column" variable from the "Start event" action
  4. Set "Retrieved column" to a new variable (a.g., "values")
👁 Configuring the SQL Server query action

Configure a "Send an Email" Action

  1. Add a "Send an email" action after the "Execute a query" action and click to configure the action
  2. Set the "Recipient email address"
  3. Set the "Subject"
  4. Set the "Message body" to the variable created for the retrieved column
👁 Configuring the email action

Once you configure the actions, click "Save," name the Workflow, and click "Save" again. You now have a simple workflow that will query Microsoft Dataverse using SQL and sand an email with the results.

To learn more about live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, check out the CData Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.