Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Dynamics 365 Business Central ODBC Driver to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

Dynamics 365 Business Central (NAV) Icon Dynamics 365 Business Central ODBC Driver

The Dynamics 365 Business Central ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Dynamics 365 Business Central like you would a database - read, write, and update Items, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

Replicate Dynamics 365 Business Central Data from PowerShell



Write a quick PowerShell script to query Dynamics 365 Business Central data. Use connectivity to the live data to replicate Dynamics 365 Business Central data to SQL Server.



The CData ODBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central enables out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft's built-in support for ODBC. The ODBC driver instantly integrates connectivity to the real Dynamics 365 Business Central data with PowerShell.

You can use the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC built into PowerShell to quickly automate integration tasks like replicating Dynamics 365 Business Central data to other databases. This article shows how to replicate Dynamics 365 Business Central data to SQL Server in 5 lines of code.

You can also write PowerShell code to execute create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. See the examples below.

Create an ODBC Data Source for Dynamics 365 Business Central

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.

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.

Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central

The code below shows how to use the DSN to initialize the connection to Dynamics 365 Business Central data in PowerShell:

$conn = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection $conn.ConnectionString = "DSN=CData D365BusinessCentral Source x64"

Back Up Dynamics 365 Business Central Data to SQL Server

After you enable caching, you can use the code below to replicate data to SQL Server.

Set the following connection properties to configure the caching database:

  • CacheProvider: The name of the ADO.NET provider. This can be found in the Machine.config for your version of .NET. For example, to configure SQL Server, enter System.Data.SqlClient.

  • CacheConnection: The connection string of properties required to connect to the database. Below is an example for SQL Server:

    Server=localhost;Database=RSB;User Id=sqltest;Password=sqltest;

The SQL query in the example can be used to refresh the entire cached table, including its schema. Any already existing cache is deleted.

$conn.Open() # Create and execute the SQL Query $SQL = "CACHE DROP EXISTING SELECT * FROM " + $Accounts $cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($sql,$conn) $count = $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery() $conn.Close()

The driver gives you complete control over the caching functionality. See the help documentation for more caching commands and usage examples. See the help documentation for steps to replicate to other databases.

Other Operations

To retrieve Dynamics 365 Business Central data in PowerShell, call the Fill method of the OdbcDataAdapter method. To execute data manipulation commands, initialize the OdbcCommand object and then call ExecuteNonQuery. Below are some more examples CRUD commands to Dynamics 365 Business Central through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

$sql="SELECT accountid, Name from Accounts" $da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn) $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable $da.Fill($dt) $dt.Rows | foreach { $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{ Write-Host $1[$_] } }

Update Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("UPDATE Accounts SET Name='MyAccount' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Insert Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("INSERT INTO Accounts SET Name='MyAccount' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Delete Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("DELETE FROM Accounts WHERE Id = @myid", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()