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

⇱ Connect to Dynamics 365 Data from HeidiSQL

Connect to Dynamics 365 Data from HeidiSQL

👁 Mohsin Turki
Mohsin Turki
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use CData Connect AI to connect to and query live Dynamics 365 data from HeidiSQL.

HeidiSQL is an open-source database administration tool that natively supports MariaDB, MySQL, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL. When paired with CData Connect AI, HediSQL reach extends to include access to live Dynamics 365 data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Dynamics 365 using Connect AI and query Dynamics 365 data in HeidiSQL.

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 HeidiSQL

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

Connect to Dynamics 365 from HeidiSQL using Connect AI

To establish a connection from HeidiSQL to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

Create a new HeidiSQL Session

  1. In the Session Manager, select New in the bottom-left
  2. Give the new session a descriptive name, e.g. Connect-Cloud-Dynamics 365
    3. 👁 Creating a new session in HeidiSQL.

Configure a SQL Server Connection to Connect AI

  1. In the session settings, set the Network type to Microsoft SQL Server (TCP/IP)
  2. The Library DLL should automatically update to MSOLEDBSQL
  3. Set the Hostname/IP to tds.cdata.com
  4. Set the User to your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected]
  5. Set the Password to your PAT created in Connect AI in the previous section.
  6. Set the Port to 14333 👁 Configuring a SQL Server connection to Connect AI

Query Dynamics 365 from HeidiSQL

  1. In the database listing on the left, find your connection to Dynamics 365 configured earlier.
  2. Expand this connection to view individual tables or data objects present within Dynamics 365.
  3. Write custom SQL queries targeting these tables, treating the data source like any SQL Server database, or visually explore each tabular data set by selecting the relevant tables 👁 Querying within HeidiSQL.

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect AI today!