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Get the Report →Connect to Dynamics CRM Data from Crystal Reports
Use CData Connect Cloud to connect to and report on live Dynamics CRM data from Crystal Reports.
Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application by SAP designed to help you analyze your data with well-formatted, pixel-perfect, and multi-page reports. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Crystal Reports gets access to live Dynamics CRM data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Dynamics CRM using Connect Cloud and report on Dynamics CRM data in Crystal Reports.
CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Dynamics CRM, allowing you to query data from Dynamics CRM without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Dynamics CRM, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Dynamics CRM data quickly.
Configure Dynamics CRM Connectivity for Crystal Reports
Connectivity to Dynamics CRM from Crystal Reports is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Dynamics CRM data from Crystal Reports, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics CRM connection.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
- Select "Dynamics CRM" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics CRM.
The connection string options meet the authentication and connection requirements of different Dynamics CRM instances. To connect to your instance, set the User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, to valid Dynamics CRM user credentials and set the Url to a valid Dynamics CRM server organization root. Additionally, set the CRMVersion property to 'CRM2011+' or 'CRMOnline'. IFD configurations are supported as well; set InternetFacingDeployment to true.
Additionally, you can provide the security token service (STS) or AD FS endpoint in the STSURL property. This value can be retrieved with the GetSTSUrl stored procedure. Office 365 users can connect to the default STS URL by simply setting CRMVersion.
- Click Create & Test
- Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics CRM Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
Add a Personal Access Token
If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.
- Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
- On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
- Give your PAT a name and click Create.
- The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.
Connect to Dynamics CRM from Crystal Reports using Connect Cloud
To establish a connection from Crystal Reports to CData Connect Cloud, you will need to download the JDBC Driver.
- Open the Client Tools page of CData Connect Cloud.
- In the Dev Tools section, click JDBC.
- Download and run the setup file.
- When the installation is complete, locate the JDBC Connect JAR file in the JDBC driver's installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib.
- Copy the JDBC Connect JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar).
After copying the JDBC CData Connect JAR file, you will need to paste it into the Crystal Reports installation location and configure the connection to Connect Cloud.
- Find the installation directory for Crystal Reports, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
- Paste the JDBC Connect JAR file into the Crystal Reports installation directory.
- Go to the parent java folder. For example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java This folder should contain a CRConfig file.
- Open CRConfig in a text editor.
- Add the path to the JDBC CData Connect JAR file in the
of the CRConfig file, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib - Log into Crystal Reports and start a blank report.
- In the Database Expert dialog, click Create New Connection.
- Select the JDBC data source and the tables you want to add. Click OK.
- In the Connection dialog, enter the Connection URL (e.g. jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=OAuth;) and Database Classname (e.g. cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver).
- Click Finish. The Database Expert dialog displays all available connections.
You can now create reports with the connected data.
Get CData Connect Cloud
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