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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/dynamics365-odbc-spotfire.rst

⇱ Visualize Dynamics 365 Data in TIBCO Spotfire through ODBC

Visualize Dynamics 365 Data in TIBCO Spotfire through ODBC

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
The ODBC standard has ubiquitous support and makes self-service business intelligence easy. Use the ODBC Driver to load Dynamics 365 data into TIBCO Spotfire.

This article walks you through using the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 in TIBCO Spotfire. You will use the data import wizard to connect to a DSN (data source name) for Salesforce and build on the sample visualizations to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Dynamics 365 as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

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


Create Visualizations of Dynamics 365 Tables

Follow the steps below to connect to the DSN and create real-time data visualizations:

  1. Click Data -> Add Data ...
  2. Click Other -> Load data with ODBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET data provider.
  3. In the Data Source Type menu, select ODBC Data Provider and click Configure.
  4. Select the DSN. 👁 The DSN to connect to in the Add Data Tables wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
  5. Select the tables that you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses GoalHeadings. You can also specify an SQL query. The driver supports the standard SQL syntax. 👁 Tables and columns selected in the tree or specified by an SQL query. (Salesforce is shown.)
  6. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

    If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

  7. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses Name in the Numbers section and GoalHeadingId in the Categories section.👁 Recommended visualizations for the imported data table. (Salesforce is shown.)

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can zoom in on high probability opportunities by applying a filter on the page. To add a filter, click the Filter button. The available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.

👁 A simple dashboard with a global filter. (Salesforce is shown.)

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Dynamics 365 ODBC Driver to get started:

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Learn more:

👁 Dynamics 365 Icon
Dynamics 365 ODBC Driver

The Dynamics 365 ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from Dynamics 365, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Dynamics 365 data like you would a database - read, write, and update Dynamics 365 Leads, Contacts, Opportunities, Accounts, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.