LINQ to Dynamics 365 Data

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the Dynamics 365 via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for Dynamics 365. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

Getting Started

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See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData Dynamics 365 Data Source".

4. Enter your data source connection information.

   Edition and OrganizationUrl are required connection properties. The Dynamics 365 connector supports connecting to the following editions: CustomerService, FieldService, FinOpsOnline, FinOpsOnPremise, HumanResources, Marketing, ProjectOperations and Sales.

   For Dynamics 365 Business Central, use the separate Dynamics 365 Business Central driver.

   OrganizationUrl is the URL to your Dynamics 365 organization. For instance, https://orgcb42e1d0.crm.dynamics.com

   Below is a typical connection string:

   OrganizationUrl=https://myaccount.operations.dynamics.com/;Edition=Sales;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

👁 Required connection properties for the data source. (QuickBooks is shown.)

5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting Dynamics365Entities as our entity connection in App.Config.
6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select , update, delete, and insert commands. For example:

Dynamics365Entities context = new Dynamics365Entities();

var goalheadingsQuery = from goalheadings in context.GoalHeadings
 select goalheadings;

foreach (var result in goalheadingsQuery) {
 Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.GoalHeadingId);
}

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.