Analyze Dynamics NAV Data in Looker

Looker is a business intelligence and big data analytics platform that helps you explore, analyze and share real-time business analytics. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Dynamics NAV data for business applications. This article shows how to connect to Dynamics NAV in Connect AI and then connect to Dynamics NAV data in Looker.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Dynamics NAV, allowing you to build reports from live Dynamics NAV data in Looker — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you create applications to work with data, Looker generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Dynamics NAV, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Dynamics NAV data.

Configure Dynamics NAV Connectivity for Looker

Connectivity to Dynamics NAV from Looker is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Dynamics NAV data from Looker, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics NAV connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Dynamics NAV" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics NAV.

   Before you can connect, OData Services will need to be enabled on the server. Once OData Services are enabled, you will be able to query any Services that are published on the server.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid Dynamics NAV user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid Dynamics NAV server organization root and a ServerInstance. If there is not a Service Default Company for the server, set the Company as well.

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

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI 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 AI. 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 AI 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 NAV data from Looker.

Connect to Dynamics NAV in Looker

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker to create a new Dynamics NAV data source.

1. Log-in to Looker
2. In the navigation pane, select Admin.
3. Under the Database category, select Connections.
4. On the Connections page, click Add Connection.
5. Enter the connection settings:
   • Name: the name for the connection in models.
   • Dialect: select Microsoft SQL Server 2017+.
   • SSH Server: leave this disabled.
   • Remote Host:Port: enter tds.cdata.com in the first field and 14333 in the second field.
   • Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, QuickBooksOnline1).
   • Username: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected]
   • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page
   Leave the rest of the connection settings at their default values unless you need to modify them.
6. At the bottom of the page, click Test These Settings to ensure that you can connect to CData Connect AI.
7. Click Add Connection to create the connection and return to the Connections page.

Your connection is now available for use in Looker. To connect to additional data sources from your CData Connect AI account, repeat the setup steps above, changing the value for Database for each data source.

Creating A Looker Visualization From The SQL Runner and Explore Features

To create a visualization in Looker using the SQL Runner, follow these steps:

1. In the Looker interface, select Develop -> SQL Runner from the left navigation pane.
2. On the SQL Runner interface, select the connection you made in the previous steps.
3. Now, click the gear symbol next to a table and then select Explore Table.
4. Next, on the left menu, select fields from the table and click Run. You can now expand the Visualization accordion, and see a bar chart, by default.

   We have now created a visualization of Dynamics NAV data in Looker using CData Connect AI!

Get CData Connect AI

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