Analyze Dynamics NAV Data in Infragistics Reveal

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

Add a Connect Server User

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

1. Click Users -> Add
2. Configure a User
3. Click Save Changes and make note of the Authtoken for the new user

Connect to Dynamics NAV from Connect Server

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

1. Open Connect Server and click Connections
2. Select "Dynamics NAV" from Available Data Sources
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, you will need to 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, you will need to set the Company as well.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions (SELECT is all that is required for Reveal).

Add Dynamics NAV OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to Dynamics NAV, create OData Endpoint for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Dynamics NAV database
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

(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 OData -> Settings.

• 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 Connect Server configured, we can visualize Dynamics NAV data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the Connect Server API endpoint URL (found in API -> Discovery -> Base URL), for example: CONNECT_SERVER_URL/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the Connect Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

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 Connect Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Dynamics NAV data in tools that consume OData APIs.