Use Microsoft Copilot Studio to talk to your Dynamics 365 Data via CData Connect AI

Cameron Leblanc
Cameron Leblanc
Senior Technology Evangelist
Leverage the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Microsoft Copilot Studio to securely answer questions and take actions on your Dynamics 365 data for you.

Microsoft Copilot Studio is a no-code/low-code platform for creating AI Agents that can automate tasks, answer questions, and assist with various business processes. When combined with CData Connect AI Remote MCP, you can leverage Copilot Studio to interact with your Dynamics 365 data in real-time. This article outlines the process of connecting to Dynamics 365 using Connect AI Remote MCP and creating a connection in Copilot Studio to interact with your Dynamics 365 data.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to Dynamics 365 data. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Microsoft Copilot Studio and Dynamics 365. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Dynamics 365 data using Microsoft Copilot Studio, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Dynamics 365. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Dynamics 365 data.

In this article, we show how to build a agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio to conversational explore (or Vibe Query) your data. The connectivity principals apply to any Copilot agent. With Connect AI you can build workflows and agents with access to live Dynamics 365 data, plus hundreds of other sources.

About Dynamics 365 Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Microsoft Dynamics 365 data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Read and write data in the full Dynamics 365 ecosystem: Sales, Customer Service, Finance & Operations, Marketing, and more.
  • Extend the native features of Dynamics CRM with customizable caching and intelligent query aggregation and separation.
  • Authenticate securely with Dynamics 365 in a variety of ways, including Azure Active Directory, Azure Managed Service Identity credentials, and Azure Service Principal using either a client secret or a certificate.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage their Dynamics 365 entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

CData customers use our Dynamics 365 connectivity solutions for a variety of reasons, whether they're looking to replicate their data into a data warehouse (alongside other data sources) or analyze live Dynamics 365 data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).


Getting Started


Step 1: Configure Dynamics 365 Connectivity for Microsoft Copilot Studio

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 from Microsoft Copilot Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with Dynamics 365 data from Microsoft Copilot Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 connection in CData Connect AI.

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

    Edition and OrganizationUrl are required connection properties. The Dynamics 365 connector supports connecting to the following editions: CustomerService, FieldService, FinOpsOnline, FinOpsOnPremise, HumanResources, Marketing, ProjectOperations and Sales.

    For Dynamics 365 Business Central, use the separate Dynamics 365 Business Central driver.

    OrganizationUrl is the URL to your Dynamics 365 organization. For instance, https://orgcb42e1d0.crm.dynamics.com

    Click Save & Test
  4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics 365 Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, we are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 data from Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Step 2: Connect Microsoft Copilot Studio to CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect AI MCP connection in Microsoft Copilot Studio:

  1. Under Tools, click Add tool, then click + New Tool.
  2. In the Add Tool window, search for and click CData Connect AI.
  3. In the Connect to CData Connect AI window, click Create to authenticate your connection CData Connect AI using OAuth authentication.
  4. Click Add and configure to add the CData Connect AI Tool to your agent.

Optional: Give the AI Agent context

This step establishes the AI Agent's role and provides context for the conversation through the Instructions property in the Agent. By providing instructions that explicitly informs the agent about its role as an MCP Server expert and lists the available tools, you can enhance the agent's understanding and response accuracy. For example, you can set the System Message to: 

You are an expert at using the MCP Client tool connected which is the CData Connect AI MCP Server. Always search thoroughly and use the most relevant MCP Client tool for each query. Below are the available tools and a description of each:
queryData: Execute SQL queries against connected data sources and retrieve results. When you use the queryData tool, ensure you use the following format for the table name: catalog.schema.tableName
getCatalogs: Retrieve a list of available connections from CData Connect AI. The connection names should be used as catalog names in other tools and in any queries to CData Connect AI. Use the `getSchemas` tool to get a list of available schemas for a specific catalog.
getSchemas: Retrieve a list of available database schemas from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog. Use the `getTables` tool to get a list of available tables for a specific catalog and schema.
getTables: Retrieve a list of available database tables from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog and schema. Use the `getColumns` tool to get a list of available columns for a specific table.
getColumns: Retrieve a list of available database columns from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog, schema, and table.
getProcedures: Retrieve a list of stored procedures from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog and schema
getProcedureParameters: Retrieve a list of stored procedure parameters from CData Connect AI for a specific catalog, schema, and procedure.
executeProcedure: Execute stored procedures with parameters against connected data sources

Step 3: Explore Live Dynamics 365 Data with Microsoft Copilot Studio

With the Agent created in Microsoft Copilot Studio and the MCP tool connected, you can now interact with your Dynamics 365 data using Microsoft Copilot Studio. The MCP tool allows you to send queries and receive responses from the Dynamics 365 data source in real-time.

Open the chat window in your Microsoft Copilot Studio Agent to begin interacting with your Dynamics 365 data. You can ask questions, retrieve data, and perform actions on your Dynamics 365 data using the MCP tool:

Get CData Connect AI

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