Query Dynamics 365 Business Central Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can access live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to Dynamics 365 Business Central, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Dynamics 365 Business Central and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

To authenticate to Dynamics 365 Business Central, you must provide the User and AccessKey properties.

To obtain the User and AccessKey values, navigate to the Users page in Dynamics 365 Business Central and then click on Edit. The User Name and Web Service Access Key values are what you will enter as the User and AccessKey connection string properties. Note that the User Name is not your email address. It is a shortened user name.

To connect to data, specify OrganizationUrl. If you have multiple companies in your organization, you must also specify the Company to indicate which company you would like to connect to. Company does not need to be specified if you have only one company.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying Dynamics 365 Business Central from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Accounts table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryD365BusinessCentral() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData D365BusinessCentral Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT accountid, Name FROM Accounts');
    console.log(data);
}

queryD365BusinessCentral();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central and start working with your live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.