Denodo Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Templates - Quick Use Guide
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Overview
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based business applications platform that combines components of customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). It was launched in 2016, when Microsoft combined Dynamics AX (its ERP application) with its Dynamics CRM application.
Dynamics 365 removes the divide between traditional ERP and CRM functionality into a unified, multi-functional application with specific business processes designed for Sales, Marketing, Finance, Customer Service, Field Service, Operations, Project management and more for all the roles and business units across your business.
As this results in a very large amount of data, menus, views… that will be a hard work to port all of them to Denodo. To make this process more friendly, we distribute this utility. Spending only a few minutes configuring one properties file and your Denodo installation with the needed tools, you’ll be able to access to your Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement data.
Dynamics 365 customer engagement templates
Importing the Dynamics 365 customer engagement VQL templates will grant you the access to the following functionalities:
- my work
- activities
- customers
- accounts
- contacts
- sales
- leads
- opportunities
- quick campaigns
- service
- cases
- service delivery
- orders
- invoices
- collateral
- products
- contracts
For each one of the mentioned views, there will be a simplified one (only shows the fields already shown in the Dynamics 365 web interface) and a full one (shows all the fields of the entity).
In the Configuration section you’ll find how to generate your own Dynamics 365 VQL templates.
Configuration
Get OAuth2 credentials
In order to get the parameters needed to authenticate to Dynamics 365, you need to follow these steps:
- Log into https://portal.azure.com/ with your username and password.
- Register an application in Azure Active Directory (ex. Denodo7.0). Here is where you get the client id (Application ID).
- Grant permissions to the app in Settings → Required Permissions () and check Delegated Permissions.
- Setup client secret key just in Settings → Keys. Write it down since it won’t be accessible again. It will be your Client secret value.
- Token endpoint URL is located in the Endpoints tab:
- Auth. server URL would be like https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/authorize?resource=https://<add your environment name, like ‘myorg.crm’>.dynamics.com. The resource parameter matches the url used to access to your Dynamics 365 web interface.
- You also need to configure the callback URL in Settings → Callback URL and set http://localhost:9090/oauth/2.0/redirectURL.jsp.
Now, you have all the data needed for the OAuth 2.0 Credentials wizard in Denodo:
Once you have filled all the inputs fields of the step one of this wizard, just click Generate the authorization URL and a URL will be displayed just below the link. Open it in a browser and you will see something like this:
Finally, you have to copy that code and paste it in the step 3 of the wizard and click in Obtain the OAuth 2.0 credentials. You can copy the credentials to the clipboard as you will need to use them later on the configuration process.
Configure dynamics_365_CE.properties file
Before importing the VQL templates in Denodo, you have to set the following parameters defined in the dynamics_365_CE.properties file:
- instance_url: the URL of your installation of Dynamics 365. It will be something like username.crm4.dynamics.com.
- api_version: the version you want to use of the Dynamics 365 API. By default, it’s set to v9.0.
- access_token: generated in the last step of the “Get OAuth2 credentials” section.
- refresh_token: generated also in the last step of the “Get OAuth2 credentials” section.
- client_id: you’ve got it in the step 2 of the “Get OAuth2 credentials” section.
- client_secret: you’ve got it in the step 4 of the “Get OAuth2 credentials” section.
- azure_directory_id: Navigate in Azure through Azure active directory → Properties and you’ll see the value in Directory id.
dynamics_365_vql.properties:
Note: Make sure you leave an empty line at the end of the properties file.
Import OData4 Custom Wrapper
There is one last thing to do before importing the VQL templates into Denodo. The templates will create an OData data source so, if you don’t have this custom wrapper imported in your Denodo installation, now you’ll have to do it.
Navigate to the Denodo Support Site (https://support.denodo.com/) and go through Downloads → DenodoConnects and you will see a list of the available connects. Select the tab that matches your Denodo installation version, look for Denodo OData 4 Custom Wrapper and click in the Download link. Note that you need to install the 20180903 version or higher.
Your browser will download a zip file. You must open it and extract denodo-odata4-wrapper-<denodo_version>-<version>-jar-with-dependencies.jar, located in the dist folder.
For each one of the mentioned views
The last step is importing this jar file into Denodo:
- Denodo 6: File → Jar management → Create
- Denodo 7 and later: File → Extension management → Import
Import the VQL file into Denodo
Once you have completed all the previous steps of this configuration section, you finally can load the dynamics_365_CE.vql file into Denodo. You only have to import it using the Import option of the VDP Administration Tool, including also dynamics_365_CE.properties:
Refresh
After the importation process finishes, refresh the Server Explorer by selecting File → Refresh and you will be able to see the data source and base views for accessing to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement:
Dynamics 365 base views
Query
Now, you can execute queries over the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement base views that have been created.
Limitations
Denodo versions
If you use Denodo 6 you need to have installed the update 20180206 or higher versions.
OData4 Custom Wrapper
Both Denodo 6 and 7 need to use 20180903 version or higher of the OData4 Custom Wrapper.