Work with Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Power Query

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Dynamics 365 Business Central, allowing you to easily integrate with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Dynamics 365 Business Central, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

Configure Dynamics 365 Business Central Connectivity for Power Query

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central from Power Query is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Power Query, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 Business Central connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Dynamics 365 Business Central" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

   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.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics 365 Business Central 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.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Power Query.

Working with Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Power Query

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to work with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Power Query.

1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor)
2. Click New Source -> SQL Server
3. In the SQL Server database modal:
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the Dynamics 365 Business Central connection (e.g. D365BusinessCentral1 )
4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
   • Set User to your Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com )
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
5. Click Connect
6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK"

At this point, you have live access to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

SQL Access to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

Now you have a direct connection to live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

To get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Cloud.