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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/dynamics365-powerbi-dataflows.rst

⇱ Create Dynamics 365 Dataflows on PowerBI.com

Create Dynamics 365 Dataflows on PowerBI.com

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Connect to the CData Power BI Connector for Dynamics 365 from PowerBI.com to create Power BI Dataflows with real-time data.

The CData Power BI Connector for Dynamics 365 seamlessly integrates with the tools and wizards in Power BI, including the real-time data workflows on PowerBI.com. Follow the steps below to pull data directly into DataFlows on PowerBI.com and use the Power BI Gateway to configure automatic refresh.

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 a DSN

Installing the Power BI Connector creates a DSN (data source name) called CData Power BI Dynamics 365. This the name of the DSN that Power BI uses to request a connection to the data source. Configure the DSN by filling in the required connection properties.

You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create a new DSN or configure (and rename) an existing DSN: From the Start menu, enter "ODBC Data Sources." Ensure that you run the version of the ODBC Administrator that corresponds to the bitness of your Power BI Desktop installation (32-bit or 64-bit).

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

Pulling Dynamics 365 Data Directly Into Your Dataflow

With the data source configured, follow the steps below to load data from Dynamics 365 tables into your DataFlow.

Set Up the Power BI Gateway

Follow the steps below to configure the gateway on your machine:

  1. Run the CData Power BI Connector installer. If you have not already done so, download the Power BI Gateway.
  2. Select the on-premises data gateway (recommended) option.
  3. Sign into the gateway.
  4. Name the gateway and specify a recovery key.

  5. In the Connectors step, choose a folder where the gateway will look for the CData Power BI Connector. This article uses C:\Users\PBIEgwService\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors\. Copy the .pqx files for the CData Connector (found in C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors\) to the folder you configured.

    NOTE: The account configured for the service (NT SERVICE\PBIEgwService) needs to be able to access the folder chosen for the gateway. If needed, you can change the service account in the Service Settings section of the gateway installer.

  6. Confirm that the entry CData.PowerBI.Dynamics365 is displayed in the list in the Connectors section. 👁 CData Power BI Connectors in the On-Premises Data Gateway.

Set up Power BI Online for a Dataflow

  1. In Power BI Online, create a new workspace, which is also known as an app, if you do not already have one. Note that this is only available with Power BI Pro or higher.
  2. Set up your On-Premises Gateway. The steps for this are in the Configuring the Gateway section of this article.
  3. Go back to Power BI Online. In settings, go to 'Manage Gateways', and add a new data source to your Gateway
    • Enter the Data Source Name, the name that the data source will be referred to within Power BI Online
    • Select the Data Source Type, (e.g. CData Power BI Connector for Dynamics 365) and set the Data Source Name (e.g. CData Power BI Dynamics 365)
    • Set Authentication Method to "Anonymous" 👁 Configuring the connection for the gateway.
    • Set Privacy Level as needed
  4. Click Add to finish the configuration (do not skip the test connection as it is important to know if a successful connection was made).

    If you would like to manage the users that have access to this data source, you can go to the Users tab.

Set up your Dataflow and pull the Dynamics 365 data

  1. In the new workspace, go to Create > Dataflow > Add New Entities.
  2. Choose the ODBC data source and enter the correct connection properties.
    👁 Connect to the data source for the CData Power BI connector.
    Enter your DSN name in the ODBC connection string section, dsn=CData Power BI Dynamics365. Choose your gateway and set the authentication type to Anonymous.
  3. Choose the table(s) you want to work with and click Transform data.
    If you want to make any changes to the query, you can right click on the query and click on Advanced Editor.

Configure Data Refresh on PowerBI.com

Refresh your dataflow to have the most up to date data.

  • To refresh manually, open the dataflow options menu from your workspace -> Dataflows and click Refresh Now.
  • To schedule refreshes, open the dataflow options menu from your workspace -> Dataflows and click Schedule Refresh. Enable the option to keep your data up to date. Specify the refresh frequency in the menus.

👁 Scheduled refresh of Dataflow.

At this point, you will have a Dataflow built on top of live Dynamics 365 data. Learn more about the CData Power BI Connectors for Dynamics 365 and download a free trial from the CData Power BI Connector for Dynamics 365 page. Let our Support Team know if you have any questions.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Dynamics 365 Power BI Connector to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

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Dynamics 365 Power BI Connector

The fastest and easiest way to connect Power BI to Dynamics 365 data. Includes comprehensive high-performance data access, real-time integration, extensive metadata discovery, and robust SQL-92 support.