Connect to Dynamics CRM Data from Crystal Reports


Use CData Connect Cloud to connect to and report on live Dynamics CRM data from Crystal Reports.

Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application by SAP designed to help you analyze your data with well-formatted, pixel-perfect, and multi-page reports. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Crystal Reports gets access to live Dynamics CRM data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Dynamics CRM using Connect Cloud and report on Dynamics CRM data in Crystal Reports.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Dynamics CRM, allowing you to query data from Dynamics CRM without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Dynamics CRM, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Dynamics CRM data quickly.

About Dynamics CRM Data Integration

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

  • Read and write data in the Dynamics CRM 2011+ Services and Dynamics CRM Online.
  • Extend the native features of Dynamics CRM with customizable caching and intelligent query aggregation and separation.
  • Authenticate securely with Dynamics CRM 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.

CData customers use our Dynamics CRM 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 CRMa data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).


Getting Started


Configure Dynamics CRM Connectivity for Crystal Reports

Connectivity to Dynamics CRM from Crystal Reports is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Dynamics CRM data from Crystal Reports, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics CRM connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
  2. Select "Dynamics CRM" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics CRM.

    The connection string options meet the authentication and connection requirements of different Dynamics CRM instances. To connect to your instance, set the User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, to valid Dynamics CRM user credentials and set the Url to a valid Dynamics CRM server organization root. Additionally, set the CRMVersion property to 'CRM2011+' or 'CRMOnline'. IFD configurations are supported as well; set InternetFacingDeployment to true.

    Additionally, you can provide the security token service (STS) or AD FS endpoint in the STSURL property. This value can be retrieved with the GetSTSUrl stored procedure. Office 365 users can connect to the default STS URL by simply setting CRMVersion.

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

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the 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.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Dynamics CRM data from Crystal Reports.

Connect to Dynamics CRM from Crystal Reports using Connect Cloud

To establish a connection from Crystal Reports to CData Connect Cloud, you will need to download the JDBC driver.

  1. Open the Client Tools page of CData Connect Cloud.
  2. Search for and select JDBC.
  3. Download and run the setup file.
  4. When the installation is complete, locate the JDBC Connect JAR file in the JDBC driver's installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib.
  5. Copy the JDBC Connect JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar).

After copying the JDBC CData Connect JAR file, you will need to paste it into the Crystal Reports installation location and configure the connection to Connect Cloud.

  1. Find the installation directory for Crystal Reports, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
  2. Paste the JDBC Connect JAR file into the Crystal Reports installation directory.
  3. Go to the parent java folder. For example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java This folder should contain a CRConfig file.
  4. Open CRConfig in a text editor.
  5. Add the path to the JDBC CData Connect JAR file in the of the CRConfig file, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
  6. Log into Crystal Reports and start a blank report.
  7. In the Database Expert dialog, click Create New Connection.
  8. Select the JDBC data source and the tables you want to add. Click OK.
  9. In the Connection dialog, enter the Connection URL (e.g. jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=Basic;user=username;password=PAT;) and Database Classname (e.g. cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver).
  10. Click Finish. The Database Expert dialog displays all available connections.

You can now create reports with the connected data.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Crystal Reports, try CData Connect Cloud today!

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