Build MVC Applications with Connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

In this article, we will guide you through the process of utilizing wizards within Visual Studio to seamlessly integrate the CData ADO.NET Provider for Dynamics 365 Business Central into a basic MVC (Model, View, Controller) project.

Create the Entity Framework Model

Follow the steps below to save connection properties and map tables to entities in the data model.

1. Create a new MVC project in Visual Studio. In this example, the project name is MvcD365BusinessCentralApp.

2. If you are using Entity Framework 6, you will need to take the preliminary step of registering the Dynamics 365 Business Central Entity Framework provider for your project. See the "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for a guide.

   Note that MVC 3 scaffolding and MVC 4 scaffolding do not support Entity Framework 6. You can use your scaffolding with Entity Framework 6 by upgrading to the latest version of MVC.

3. To add the .edmx file from the designer, right-click your Models folder and click Add New Item. Select ADO.NET Entity Data Model, name the model, and click Add. In this example, the name of the model is D365BusinessCentralModel.
4. In the Entity Data Model wizard, select the option 'EF Designer from database'. The Entity Data Model wizard is displayed.
5. Click New Connection. Select CData Dynamics 365 Business Central Data Source in the dialog that is displayed.

6. Specify the required connection string properties.

   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.

   A typical connection string is below:

   OrganizationUrl=https://myaccount.financials.dynamics.com/;

7. Name the connection and select whether to include sensitive information, such as connection credentials, in the connection string. For simplicity, this example saves sensitive information in Web.config. The connection settings are saved as D365BusinessCentralEntities.

8. Select the tables and views you need. In this example, Accounts is imported. Also, the option to pluralize object names is deselected in this example. Click Finish to create the .edmx file.
9. Build your project to complete this step.

Scaffold the Controller and Views

Once you've established the model and completed the project build, you can employ ASP.NET Scaffolding wizards to generate both the controller and the views.

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the controllers folder and click Add -> Controller. Select MVC 5 Controller with views, using Entity Framework.
2. In the Add Controller dialog that is then displayed, select the following options:
   • Model class: Select a table you imported; for example, Accounts.
   • Data context class: Select your context class.
3. Leave the default values for the other fields.