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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/dynamics365-cloud-datapine.rst

⇱ Build Dynamics 365-Connected Visualizations in datapine

Build Dynamics 365-Connected Visualizations in datapine

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI and datapine to build visualizations and dashboards with access to live Dynamics 365 data.

datapine is a browser-based business intelligence platform. When paired with the CData Connect AI, you get access to your Dynamics 365 data directly from your datapine visualizations and dashboards. This article describes connecting to Dynamics 365 in CData Connect AI and building a simple Dynamics 365-connected visualization in datapine.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Dynamics 365, allowing you to query data from Dynamics 365 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 Dynamics 365, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Dynamics 365 data quickly.

About Dynamics 365 Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Microsoft Dynamics 365 data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Read and write data in the full Dynamics 365 ecosystem: Sales, Customer Service, Finance & Operations, Marketing, and more.
  • Extend the native features of Dynamics CRM with customizable caching and intelligent query aggregation and separation.
  • Authenticate securely with Dynamics 365 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 their Dynamics 365 entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

CData customers use our Dynamics 365 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 Dynamics 365 data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).


Getting Started


Configure Dynamics 365 Connectivity for datapine

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 from datapine is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Dynamics 365 data from datapine, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Dynamics 365" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics 365.

    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

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics 365 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 Dynamics 365 data from datapine.

Connecting to Dynamics 365 from datapine

Once you configure your connection to Dynamics 365 in Connect AI, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 from datapine.

  1. Log into datapine
  2. Click Connect to navigate to the "Connect" page
  3. Select MS SQL Server as the data source
  4. In the Integration step, fill in the connection properties and click "Save and Proceed"
    • Set the Internal Name
    • Set Database Name to the name of the connection we just configured (e.g. Dynamics3651)
    • Set Host / IP to "tds.cdata.com"
    • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to the corresponding PAT
    • Set Database Port to "14333"
    👁 Configuring the connection to CData Connect AI
  5. In the Data Schema step, select the tables and fields to visualize and click "Save and Proceed" 👁 Selecting tables and fields to visualize (Salesforce is shown)
  6. In the References step, define any relationships between your selected tables and click "Save and Proceed" 👁 Defining foreign key relationships
  7. In the Data Transfer step, click "Go to Analyzer"

Visualize Dynamics 365 Data in datapine

After connecting to CData Connect AI, you are ready to visualize your Dynamics 365 data in datapine. Simply select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize!

👁 Visualizing data in datapine (Salesforce is shown)

Having connect to Dynamics 365 from datapine, you are now able to visualize and analyze real-time Dynamics 365 data no matter where you are. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from datapine, try CData Connect AI today!