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

⇱ Analyze Dynamics 365 Data in Infragistics Reveal

Analyze Dynamics 365 Data in Infragistics Reveal

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to create on OData API on top of Dynamics 365 data and visualize live Dynamics 365 data in Infragistics Reveal.

Reveal, an offering from Infragistics, serves as a data visualization tool that seamlessly integrates with CData Connect AI. Together, they empower users to deliver dynamic dashboards using real-time data from a diverse range of data sources, including Dynamics 365 data. In this article, we will guide you through the process of connecting to Dynamics 365 via Connect AI and subsequently linking Connect AI with Infragistics Reveal to construct a straightforward dashboard.

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


Connect to Dynamics 365 from Infragistics Reveal

To work with live Dynamics 365 data in Infragistics Reveal, we need to connect to Dynamics 365 from Connect AI, provide user access to the connection, and create a Workspace for the Dynamics 365 data.

Connect to Dynamics 365 from Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

  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.

Configure Dynamics 365 Endpoints for Infragistics Reveal

After connecting to Dynamics 365, create a workspace for your desired table(s).

  1. Navigate to the Workspaces page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace). 👁 The Workspaces page.
    👁 Adding a new Workspace.
  2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
  3. Select the Dynamics 365 connection (e.g. Dynamics3651) and click Next. 👁 Selecting an Asset (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm. 👁 Selecting Tables (Salesforce is shown).
  5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection, PAT, and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 data from Infragistics Reveal.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With Connect AI configured, we can visualize Dynamics 365 data in Reveal.

  1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New 👁 Adding a new dashboard
  2. Click Data Sources -> OData Feed 👁 Adding a new OData data source
  3. Specify the Connect AI OData API endpoint URL (found on the OData page): https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name} 👁 Configuring the OData URL
  4. Select Generic Credentials and
    • Set Username to a Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to the PAT for the user
    👁 Configuring the credentials
  5. Select the entity you wish to visualize 👁 Selecting an entity to visualize (Salesforce is shown.)
  6. Select fields and choose a chart type 👁 Visualizing data in Reveal (Salesforce is shown.)

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Dynamics 365 data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Dynamics 365 (and more than 100 other sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working live Dynamics 365 data in tools that consume OData APIs.