PowerShell Scripting to Replicate Dynamics 365 Business Central Data to MySQL

The CData Cmdlets for Dynamics 365 Business Central offer live access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from within PowerShell. Using PowerShell scripts, you can easily automate regular tasks like data replication. This article will walk through using the CData Cmdlets for Dynamics 365 Business Central and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate Dynamics 365 Business Central data to a MySQL database.

After obtaining the needed connection properties, accessing Dynamics 365 Business Central data in PowerShell and preparing for replication consists of four basic steps.

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.

Collecting Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module D365BusinessCentralCmdlets

2. Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central:

   $d365businesscentral = Connect-D365BusinessCentral -OrganizationUrl $OrganizationUrl

3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

   $data = Select-D365BusinessCentral -Connection $d365businesscentral -Table "Accounts"

   You can also use the Invoke-D365BusinessCentral cmdlet to execute pure SQL-92 statements:

   $data = Invoke-D365BusinessCentral -Connection $d365businesscentral -Query 'SELECT * FROM Accounts WHERE Name = @Name' -Params @{'@Name'='MyAccount'}

4. Save a list of the column names from the returned data.

   $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name

Inserting Dynamics 365 Business Central Data into the MySQL Database

With the data and column names collected, you are ready to replicate the data into a MySQL database.

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module MySQLCmdlets

2. Connect to MySQL, using the server address and port of the MySQL server, valid user credentials, and a specific database with the table in which the data will be replicated:

   $mysql = Connect-MySQL -User $User -Password $Password -Database $Database -Server $Server -Port $Port

3. Loop through the Dynamics 365 Business Central data, store the values, and use the Add-MySQL cmdlet to insert the data into the MySQL database, one row at a time. In this example, the table will need to have the same name as the Dynamics 365 Business Central resource (Accounts) and to exist in the database.

   $data | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Accounts" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

You have now replicated your Dynamics 365 Business Central data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with Dynamics 365 Business Central data in the same way that you work with other MySQL tables, whether that is performing analytics, building reports, or other business functions.

Notes

• Once you have connected to Dynamics 365 Business Central and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

  Select-D365BusinessCentral -Connection $d365businesscentral -Table "Accounts" | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Accounts" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

• If you wish to replicate the Dynamics 365 Business Central data to another database using another PowerShell module, you will want to exclude the Columns, Connection, and Table columns from the data returned by the Select-D365BusinessCentral cmdlet since those columns are used to help pipe data from one CData cmdlet to another:

  $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name | ? {$_ -NotIn @('Columns','Connection','Table')}