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Use standard R functions and the development environment of your choice to analyze Dynamics CRM data with the CData JDBC Driver for Dynamics CRM.
Access Dynamics CRM data with pure R script and standard SQL on any machine where R and Java can be installed. You can use the CData JDBC Driver for Dynamics CRM and the RJDBC package to work with remote Dynamics CRM data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Dynamics CRM and visualize Dynamics CRM data by calling standard R functions.
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
Install R
You can match the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running open R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open 3.2.3, which is preconfigured to install packages from the Jan. 1, 2016 snapshot of the CRAN repository. This snapshot ensures reproducibility.
Load the RJDBC Package
To use the driver, download the RJDBC package. After installing the RJDBC package, the following line loads the package:
library(RJDBC)
Connect to Dynamics CRM as a JDBC Data Source
You will need the following information to connect to Dynamics CRM as a JDBC data source:
- Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.dynamicscrm.DynamicsCRMDriver
- Classpath: Set this to the location of the driver JAR. By default this is the lib subfolder of the installation folder.
The DBI functions, such as dbConnect and dbSendQuery, provide a unified interface for writing data access code in R. Use the following line to initialize a DBI driver that can make JDBC requests to the CData JDBC Driver for Dynamics CRM:
driver <- JDBC(driverClass = "cdata.jdbc.dynamicscrm.DynamicsCRMDriver", classPath = "MyInstallationDir\lib\cdata.jdbc.dynamicscrm.jar", identifier.quote = "'")
You can now use DBI functions to connect to Dynamics CRM and execute SQL queries. Initialize the JDBC connection with the dbConnect function.
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.
Built-in Connection String Designer
For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Dynamics CRM JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.
java -jar cdata.jdbc.dynamicscrm.jar
Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

Below is a sample dbConnect call, including a typical JDBC connection string:
conn <- dbConnect(driver,"jdbc:dynamicscrm:User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=https://myOrg.crm.dynamics.com/;CRM Version=CRM Online;")
Schema Discovery
The driver models Dynamics CRM APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:
dbListTables(conn)
Execute SQL Queries
You can use the dbGetQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Dynamics CRM API:
account <- dbGetQuery(conn,"SELECT Contact.FirstName, SUM(Account.NumberOfEmployees) FROM Contact, Account GROUP BY Contact.FirstName")
You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:
View(account)
Plot Dynamics CRM Data
You can now analyze Dynamics CRM data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:
par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2)) barplot(account$NumberOfEmployees, main="Dynamics CRM Account", names.arg = account$FirstName, horiz=TRUE)
