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⇱ Create Reports from Dynamics 365 Data in Looker Studio

Create Reports from Dynamics 365 Data in Looker Studio

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to gain access to live Dynamics 365 data and create custom reports in Looker Studio.

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Dynamics 365 data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Dynamics 365 and generating reports from Dynamics 365 data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Dynamics 365, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Dynamics 365 data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Dynamics 365. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Dynamics 365 data.

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


This article requires a CData Connect AI instance and the CData Connect AI Connector for Looker Studio. Get more information on the CData Connect AI and sign up for a free trial at https://www.cdata.com/cloud.


Configure Dynamics 365 Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Dynamics 365 data from Looker Studio, 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

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Dynamics 365 Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Dynamics 365 data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

  1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.
    2. 👁 Create a new connection in Looker Studio
  2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account. 👁 Granting permissions to the Connector
  3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authenticating with CData Connect AI
  4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next
    5. 👁 Importing from Connections
  5. Now select a Connection (e.g. Dynamics3651) and click Next 👁 Selecting a Connection
  6. Select a Table (e.g. GoalHeadings) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue 👁 Selecting a Table
  7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
    8. 👁 Configuring column definitions
  8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
  9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.
    10. 👁 Visualizing Dynamics 365 data in Looker Studio

Live Access to Dynamics 365 Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Dynamics 365 data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Dynamics 365 data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.