The company I work for uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to track our clients and is hosted through Office 365. It has the most up-to-date client information.
Up until now we have been maintaining a second database with duplicate data that is used for the internal database... as you might have guessed it doesn't get updated with the latest information, so we run into issues where a query is run and pulls out of date client information.
Instead of queries using the internal database's client list, I want to pull the data from the CRM database. Has anyone done this before and have experience with it? Not finding much on it. The URL is something like https://businessname.crm.dynamics.com. Oh and I am using Django.
You can't access the database for CRM online. However CRM has a number of web services which provide easy access to data, you will probably want to use the Web API.
There is a lot of documentation available on the MSDN; Use Microsoft Dynamics 365 web services.
Related
I have data in Microsoft's Common Data Service (from Microsoft Dynamics for Talent). I can't use the Data Management Framework as the data in question is in entities that are not available through the DMF.
How do I replicate the data in the CDS back a SQL database?
What I've tried so far is to create a logic app (and flow, neither worked) that grabs data using the CDS connector and pushes it into an SQL database, but there are several problems with this:
It's a maintenance burden
It's extremely error tedious to add new tables, etc. I have written a somehwat horendous stored proc that tries to create a table based on the data given to it from the json-ified data from the flow, but this is very error prone.
It doesn't work at all, since the size of the data exceeds some kind of limitation in the SQL connector and I get spurious errors.
Rather than trying to push through with these issues, I'd rather ask whether there's a better way to achieve this. With the Data Management Framework in Dynamics it was simply a matter of scheduling these sync jobs, which worked pretty well. Is there something similar with CDS?
I've also tried looking at the Data Integration projects in Powerapps, but these only seem to allow me to get data into Powerapps/CDS, not back out...
Common Data Service for Apps provides access to the data using the user interfaces or API, there is no direct access to the underlying database. This architecture has certain limitations when it comes to processing large volumes of data, for example for the purposes of data warehousing, reporting, or using Azure machine learning and analytics tools. Replicating CDS data using Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) tools is possible but inherently complex to maintain.
Data Export Service is a service made available on Microsoft AppSource that adds the ability to replicate Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps data to an Azure SQL Database store in a customer-owned Azure subscription.
Note: The Data Export Service requires Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps subscription, it is not available on Common Data Service for Apps plans.
I have an online instance of Dynamics 365 v. 9.0 with its basic OOB configuration. I need to synchronize a set of attributes from my local Active Directory users to Dynamics 365 system users entity. For this purpose, there aren't any logon or identity requirements between AD and CRM. The only need is to sync specific attributes like position of the user in the organization hierarchy.
Can I accomplish that without developing code?
You'll need an app that runs from your local network, since it will probably be difficult to configure any sort of cloud-based solution like Microsoft Flow or Zapier to talk to your local AD.
I'd recommend using Data Sync Studio from Simego (http://www.simego.com) for a code-less solution. It is a Windows program that would run from your local desktop or Windows server. It can connect to AD and Dynamics Online.
If this is a one-time migration, the trial version would probably work for you. If it is an ongoing synchronization, they have a server product that will run your sync jobs on a schedule.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Simego in any way - I just like their product for things like this. :)
I have been looking for a way to put a database like an microsoft access relational database shared among many people. You used to be able to create a web app but that's no longer supported.
I've heard powerapps is a solution but it looks like it is to be used only by phones or tablets?
I already have a office 365 account with access to multiple applications. Is there anything that can be used to create what I am asking using those services?
Or do I need to look into SQL databases?
You are correct that classic Microsoft Access is not web/browser based (after an attempt was stopped by Microsoft).
A browser based web database requires a back end database that supports the front end web server. In the Microsoft family that would be SQL Server behind IIS. This is all mainstream stuff - but an order of magnitude more complicated than classic Access. There are of course competing brands besides Microsoft - the most well known being the LAMP stack.
There exists a group of web database services, as an alternative: Knack, QuickBase, Zoho, etc. With these one must live with the User Interface and feature set they offer.
For a windows application (i.e. Access) with geographically separated users one would rely on the terminal services technology by deploying a Remote Desktop Server. This is primarily oriented towards internal users - not public facing.
I can't believe that I have not yet found the answer to this question.
All I want to know is where to start in terms of using SQL tools (queries or SSIS I assume) to query CRM online (2013) and bring data into a table.
Is this even possible?
I want to download data, then I want to transform then I want to put it back. I'm sure I can work out that once I know to start!!!
Many thanks, Warren
Unfortunately, CRM Online doesn't give you direct access to the database layer via SSMS.
There are some good samples in the CRM SDK that show how to retrieve data if you are up for writing some C#. This is their intro sample for how to connect to your CRM instance, gather some data, display it, and then update the entities. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh675400.aspx
Once you manage to connect to your CRM instance, you will have access to all of your CRM data objects.
What I can suggest you based on my experience is you can get Data From CRM Online to your SQL using SSIS and you can use SSIS Integration Toolkit for CRM for it.
I am trying to create a dashboard for Dynamics CRM 4.0 using the telerik silverlight rad controls and charts. what is the easiest/fastest way to link my project to CRM?
You'll either need to use the CRM web services API to query for data, or if you can access the SQL Server database directly, you could query the SQL views that CRM generates. These are the only ways of accessing data in CRM that are supported by Microsoft.
As a starter, check the Dynamics CRM SDK documentation for technical information about Dynamics CRM and the web services API:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb928212.aspx
If you want to use the SQL views, also check the Report Writers Guide - this is guidance for people writing SSRS reports for CRM, but should provide useful information:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb955081.aspx
If you use the views, you should always use the ones named 'Filtered...' as these will respect the authenticated users' security role (ie. they prevent users seeing data they wouldn't normally see when using CRM via the UI.)
Information on Filtered Views:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc308184.aspx