Integrate Dify with Live Dynamics 365 Data via CData Connect AI

Anusha M B
Anusha M B
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Dify agents and workflows to securely access and query live Dynamics 365 data.

Dify is an open source platform for building production-ready agentic workflows, chatbots, and other LLM applications. It includes built-in, two-way support for the model context protocol (MCP), allowing you to register remote MCP servers as tools in the platform to add external data sources and give your agents access to live data.

By integrating Dify with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP Server, Dify gains governed, real-time access to live Dynamics 365 data. You can list catalogs, explore schemas, and query records from Dynamics 365 data using natural language prompts, with all data access running securely against authorized sources.

This article explains how to configure Dynamics 365 connectivity in Connect AI, generate the required personal access token, register the Connect AI MCP Server as a tool in Dify, add it to an agent application, and verify the integration by querying live Dynamics 365 data from Dify.

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 Microsoft Entra ID, 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 Dify

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 from Dify is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with Dynamics 365 data from Dify, start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 connection in Connect AI.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. Adding a connection in Connect AI
  2. Select Dynamics 365 from the Add Connection panel
    3. Selecting data source
  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

    Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab and update user-based permissions
    6. Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Dify. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each integration to maintain granular access control.

  1. Click the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open Settings
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT
  3. Give the PAT a descriptive name and click Create
    4. Creating a new PAT
  4. Copy the token when displayed and store it securely. It will not be shown again

With the Dynamics 365 connection configured and a PAT generated, Dify can now connect to Dynamics 365 data through Connect AI.

Step 2: Register the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify

Next, register the Connect AI Remote MCP Server as a tool in Dify so your agents and workflows can discover and call live data tools through Connect AI.

  1. Log into Dify, or open your self-hosted Dify instance (version 1.6.0 or later, which includes built-in MCP support)
  2. Navigate to the Integrations page, select Tools and click MCP tab
    3. Navigate to MCP
  3. Click Add MCP Server (HTTP) and enter the following details:
    • Server URL: https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp
    • Name Icon: Give a descriptive name, for example, CData Connect AI
    • Server Identifier: A unique identifier, for example, cdata-connect-ai
    • Headers: Add an Authorization header with the value Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT

    Note: Dify will use Basic authentication with Connect AI. Combine your Connect AI user email and the PAT you created earlier in the format email:PAT, base64 encode the combined string, and prefix it with Basic.

  4. Click Add & Authorize. Dify connects to the Connect AI MCP Server and lists the available tools Adding the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify

With the MCP server registered, the Connect AI tools are available to any agent application or workflow in your Dify workspace.

Step 3: Query live Dynamics 365 data from Dify

With the integration complete, build an agent application in Dify and interact with live Dynamics 365 data through natural language prompts.

  1. From the Dify Studio page, click Create from Blank and select Agent as the application type Viewing the Connect AI MCP tools in Dify
  2. In the agent configuration, click Add under the Tools section and select the Connect AI MCP tools registered in Step 2 Adding the Connect AI MCP tools to a Dify agent
  3. Select an LLM provider and model for the agent so it can interpret prompts and call MCP tools
  4. In the preview panel, type a prompt in the chat input, for example:
    • Use the cdata-connect-ai tools to list all available catalogs
    • Show the available schemas and tables for Dynamics 365
    • Query the top 5 records from a table in Dynamics 365
  5. The Dify agent calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Dynamics 365 data Querying live data from a Dify agent

At this point, Dify communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Dynamics 365 data through remote MCP tools directly from your agentic workflows.

Get started with CData Connect AI

To access hundreds of SaaS, big data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today. Download a free 14-day trial of CData Connect AI, and our Support Team is available to help with any questions you have.

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