Access Dynamics 365 Business Central Data as OData Feeds in Tableau

The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Dynamics 365 Business Central (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), provides Dynamics 365 Business Central data as OData Web services. This article will explain how to use the API Server to provide the underlying connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central data in Tableau's business intelligence tool.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Dynamics 365 Business Central OData services:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Dynamics 365 Business Central, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

To authenticate to Dynamics 365 Business Central, you must provide the User and AccessKey properties.

To obtain the User and AccessKey values, navigate to the Users page in Dynamics 365 Business Central and then click on Edit. The User Name and Web Service Access Key values are what you will enter as the User and AccessKey connection string properties. Note that the User Name is not your email address. It is a shortened user name.

To connect to data, specify OrganizationUrl. If you have multiple companies in your organization, you must also specify the Company to indicate which company you would like to connect to. Company does not need to be specified if you have only one company.

When you configure the connection, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

You can then choose the Dynamics 365 Business Central entities you want to allow the API Server to access by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Additionally, click Settings -> Server and set the Default Format to XML (Atom) for compatibility with Tableau.

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; by default only connections to the local machine are allowed. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.

Create Real-Time Dynamics 365 Business Central Data Visualizations

Follow the steps below to create data visualizations based on the remote Dynamics 365 Business Central data:

1. In Tableau, select 'Connect to data'. In the 'On a server' section, click OData.

   

2. In the resulting wizard, enter the URL of the OData endpoint for the API Server. Append the name of the table you want to access to the OData entry URL. For example:

   https://your-server/api.rsc/Accounts
3. Select the 'Use a Username and Password' option and enter the username and password of a user who has access to the API Server.

4. Tableau uses the table metadata exposed by the API Server to detect dimension and measure columns.

   

5. To view the Dynamics 365 Business Central data, right-click under the table name in the Data section of the dashboard and select the View Data option. The Dynamics 365 Business Central data will appear in Tableau.