Analyze Dynamics NAV Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Dynamics NAV data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Dynamics NAV, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Dynamics NAV in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Dynamics NAV from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection 👁 Adding a connection
   
2. Select "Dynamics NAV" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics NAV.

   Before you can connect, OData Services will need to be enabled on the server. Once OData Services are enabled, you will be able to query any Services that are published on the server.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid Dynamics NAV user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid Dynamics NAV server organization root and a ServerInstance. If there is not a Service Default Company for the server, set the Company as well.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Dynamics NAV Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Dynamics NAV, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Dynamics NAV data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the Dynamics NAV connection 👁 Selecting a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next 👁 Selecting a Table (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Dynamics NAV from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Dynamics NAV Connection and Resource(s) 👁 Creating a new user
   

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Dynamics NAV data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New 👁 Adding a new dashboard
   
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed 👁 Adding a new OData data source
   
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc 👁 Configuring the OData URL
   
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token 👁 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 NAV data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Dynamics NAV (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Dynamics NAV data in tools that consume OData APIs.