Create Apps from Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Qlik Sense Cloud

Qlik Sense Cloud allows you to create and share data visualizations and interact with information in new ways. CData Connect Cloud creates a live connection to Dynamics 365 Business Central. By pairing Qlik Sense Cloud with CData Connect Cloud, you get true cloud-to-cloud connectivity to all of your SaaS and cloud-based Big Data and NoSQL sources — no need to migrate your data or write your integrations. Simply connect to Connect Cloud from Qlik Sense Cloud and get instant, live access to your Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

In this article, we walk through two connections:

1. Connecting to Dynamics 365 Business Central in Connect Cloud
2. Connecting to Connect Cloud from Qlik Sense Cloud to create a model and build a simple dashboard

Configure Dynamics 365 Business Central Connectivity for Qlik Cloud

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

(Optional) Add a New Connect Cloud User

As needed, create Users to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central through Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the Users page and click Invite Users
2. Enter the new user's email address and click Send to invite the user
3. You can review and edit users from the Users page

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 to the CData Connect Cloud OData service. 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.

Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central from Connect Cloud

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

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.

With the connection to Dynamics 365 Business Central configured, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Qlik Sense Cloud.

Create a Qlik Sense App from Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

This section walks through adding Dynamics 365 Business Central data to a Qlik Sense app for visualizations, analytics, reporting, and more.

Create a New App and Upload Data

1. Log into your Qlik Sense instance and click the button to create a new app
2. Name and configure the new app and click "Create"
3. In the workspace, click to open the new app
4. Click to add data from files and other sources
5. Select the Microsoft SQL Server connector and set the configuration properties.
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Database to the connection you created (e.g. D365BusinessCentral1)
   • Set User name to the Connect Cloud user (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
6. Select an owner for the connection
7. Select a Dynamics 365 Business Central entity (Table) to view
8. Click Next, configure the model, and load the data into Qlik Sense.

Generate Insights or Customize Your App

With the data loaded into Qlik Sense, you are ready to begin discovering insights. You can build custom visualizations, reports, and dashboards engineered to gain actionable insights into your Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live Dynamics 365 Business Central data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Dynamics 365 Business Central (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Qlik Sense Cloud.