Use the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central in MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central, you gain database-like access to live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through creating a database instance for Dynamics 365 Business Central in MicroStrategy Developer and creating a Warehouse Catalog based on Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to Dynamics 365 Business Central, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Dynamics 365 Business Central and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Dynamics 365 Business Central data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Dynamics 365 Business Central follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments (the ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central must be installed on the machine hosting the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server).

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Create a Dynamics 365 Business Central Database Instance in MicroStrategy Developer

You can connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central in MicroStrategy Developer by adding a database instance based on the CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central.^*

1. Open MicroStrategy Developer and select a Project Source.
2. Navigate to Administration -> Configuration Managers -> Database Instances and right-click to add a new instance.
3. Name the instance, select Generic DBMS as the database connection type, and create a new database connection.
4. In the database connection wizard, name the connection and create a new Database Login name, using filler values for the user and password.
5. Select the DSN that you configured earlier as the ODBC data source (i.e., CData D365BusinessCentral Sys).
6. Select the newly created database connection.
7. In the Project Source, right-click the project and open the Project configuration.
8. Navigate to Database Instances and select the newly created database instance.
9. Close MicroStrategy Developer and restart the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server to complete the database instance creation.

With the database instance configured, you will now be able to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from the Warehouse Catalog and Data Import.

Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data from the Warehouse Catalog

Once you have created a database instance based on the ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can connect to data from the Warehouse Catalog.

1. Select your project and click Schema -> Warehouse Catalog.
2. In the Read Settings for the Catalog, click Settings and set the queries to retrieve the schema:
   • To retrieve the list of tables, use the following query:

     SELECT 
       CatalogName NAME_SPACE,
       TableName TAB_NAME 
     FROM 
       SYS_TABLES
             

   • To retrieve the list of columns for selected tables, use the following query:

     SELECT DISTINCT 
       CatalogName NAME_SPACE, 
       TableName TAB_NAME, 
       ColumnName COL_NAME, 
       DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, 
       Length DATA_LEN, 
       NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, 
       NumericScale DATA_SCALE 
     FROM 
       SYS_TABLECOLUMNS 
     WHERE 
       TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) 
     ORDER BY
       1,2,3
             

3. Select tables to be used in the project.

If you are interested in connecting to Dynamics 365 Business Central from other MicroStrategy products, you can read about connecting from MicroStrategy Web and connecting from MicroStrategy Desktop.

Note: connecting using a ODBC driver requires a 3- or 4-tier architecture.