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Analyze Microsoft Dataverse Data in Infragistics Reveal
Use the CData API Server to create an OData API on top of Microsoft Dataverse data and visualize live Microsoft Dataverse data in Ingragistics Reveal.
Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server and Microsoft Dataverse ADO.NET Provider to build dynamic dashboards from live Microsoft Dataverse data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Microsoft Dataverse, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Microsoft Dataverse in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.
About Microsoft Dataverse Data Integration
CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Microsoft Dataverse (formerly the Common Data Service). Customers use CData connectivity to:
- Access both Dataverse Entities and Dataverse system tables to work with exactly the data they need.
- Authenticate securely with Microsoft Dataverse 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.
- Use SQL stored procedures to manage Microsoft Dataverse entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.
CData customers use our Dataverse 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 Dataverse data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).
Getting Started
Connect to Microsoft Dataverse from API Server
CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.
- Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
- Select "Microsoft Dataverse"
- Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Microsoft Dataverse.
You can connect without setting any connection properties for your user credentials. Below are the minimum connection properties required to connect.
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
- OrganizationUrl: Set this to the organization URL you are connecting to, such as https://myorganization.crm.dynamics.com.
- Tenant (optional): Set this if you wish to authenticate to a different tenant than your default. This is required to work with an organization not on your default Tenant.
When you connect the Common Data Service OAuth endpoint opens in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions. The OAuth process completes automatically.
Add Microsoft Dataverse Resource Definitions in API Server
After connecting to Microsoft Dataverse, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Microsoft Dataverse data.
- Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
- Select the Microsoft Dataverse connection
- Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
- (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
- Save the settings
Add an API Server User
Create a User to connect to Microsoft Dataverse from Reveal through API Server.
- Click Settings -> Users
- Click Add
- Configure a User with access to the Microsoft Dataverse Connection and Resource(s)
(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.
- Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
- Allow all domains without '*': ON
- Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
- Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization
Save the changes to the settings.
Create a Dashboard in Reveal
With the API Server configured, we can visualize Microsoft Dataverse data in Reveal.
- Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
- Click Data Source -> OData Feed
- Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
- Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
- Select the entity you wish to visualize
- Select fields and choose a chart type
More Information & Free Trial
At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Microsoft Dataverse data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Microsoft Dataverse (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Microsoft Dataverse data in tools that consume OData APIs.
