Comparing the three main ways to get Dynamics 365 data into Power BI


Ulrik (CRM Chart Guy)'s avatarcrm chart guy

There are a few different ways to get your Dynamics 365 data into Power BI. Now that the Common Data Service connector has come out of preview and is generally available, I figured it would be a good time to have a look at the different methods and how they stack up.

The different direct methods are:

  • Dynamics 365 Online connector
  • Common Data Service (CDS) Connector
  • FetchXML (via Power Query Builder for XrmToolBox)

You can also use OData directly, but since this option doesn’t have any benefits over the other three, I am going to leave it out. The Data Export Service does have some benefits, but I will have to leave that for a different blog post.

The Dynamics 365 Online connector is probably the most commonly used option as it is the result you get when searching for “Dynamics 365” in Power BI’s Get Data dialog.

D365 legacy connector

The Common…

View original post 2,494 more words

Use query acceleration to retrieve data from Azure Data Lake Storage


Few key points about query acceleration –

Query acceleration supports ANSI SQL like language, to retrieve only the required subset of the data from the storage account, reducing network latency and compute cost.

Query acceleration requests can process only one file, thus joins and group by aggregates aren’t supported.

Query acceleration supports both Data Lake Storage (with hierarchical namespace enabled) and blobs in the storage account.

Query acceleration supports CSV and JSON formatted data as input.

Let us take a simple example to see it in action.

Within mydatalakegen (StorageV2 (general purpose v2)), we have All Contacts.csv with the mycrmcontainer.

Open the Windows PowerShell command window

Sign in to Azure subscription

  • Connect-AzAccount

Register the query acceleration feature

  • Register-AzProviderFeature -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Storage -FeatureName BlobQuery

Register the resource provider

  • Register-AzResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace ‘Microsoft.Storage’

Create a console application project in Visual Studio and add the following NuGet Packages

Sample Code –

</pre>

using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.IO;
using Azure.Storage.Blobs;
using Azure.Storage.Blobs.Models;
using Azure.Storage.Blobs.Specialized;
using CsvHelper;
using CsvHelper.Configuration;

namespace MyQuery
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{

// Initialize the BlockBlobClient
BlockBlobClient myBlobClient = new BlockBlobClient(connectionString: "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=mydatalakegen;AccountKey=orc8e1Dpclu5P3Ox9PIlsLG2/x8KZLcmgyhOEgz6yFTmzFJty+EpHQ==;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net",
containerName: "mycrmcontainer", blobName: "All Contacts.csv");

// Define the query
// First Name - space in the column header
// _4 - referring the 4th column in the csv file
// LIMIT - limit to first 10 records
string query = @"SELECT ""First Name"", _4, email FROM BlobStorage LIMIT 10";

var blobQueryOptions = new BlobQueryOptions();
blobQueryOptions.InputTextConfiguration = new BlobQueryCsvTextOptions() { HasHeaders = true };

var result = myBlobClient.Query(query, blobQueryOptions);
var reader = new StreamReader(result.Value.Content);

var parser = new CsvReader(reader, new CsvConfiguration(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture) { HasHeaderRecord = true });

while(parser.Read())
{
Console.Out.WriteLine(String.Join(" ", parser.Context.Record));
}

Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
<pre>

Output –

Get all the details here –

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/query-acceleration-sql-reference

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/data-lake-storage-query-acceleration

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/data-lake-storage-query-acceleration-how-to?tabs=azure-powershell%2Cpowershell

 

Posts on Azure Data Lake

Hope it helps..

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Fixed – AADSTS7000218: The request body must contain the following parameter: ‘client_assertion’ or ‘client_secret


While trying to access Azure resources using UsernamePasswordCredential credential we were getting the below error

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/azure.identity.usernamepasswordcredential?view=azure-dotnet

Azure.Identity.AuthenticationFailedException: ‘UsernamePasswordCredential authentication failed: A configuration issue is preventing authentication – check the error message from the server for details.You can modify the configuration in the application registration portal. See https://aka.ms/msal-net-invalid-client for details. Original exception: AADSTS7000218: The request body must contain the following parameter: ‘client_assertion’ or ‘client_secret’.

Trace ID: ef6c9e2b-862a-4a8b-9519-9a9072d23301

Correlation ID: 5f9bae95-e45a-4da5-b27c-ad9704e7334e

Timestamp: 2020-11-28 05:58:05Z’

This was because Allow public client flows was disabled for the application registered in Azure AD.

Enabling it fixed the issues for us.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/active-directory/develop/scenario-desktop-acquire-token?tabs=dotnet#username-and-password

More on ROPC

https://nishantrana.me/2019/08/23/connect-to-dynamics-365-web-api-using-oauth-2-0-resource-owner-password-credential-ropc/

Hope it helps..

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Working with large CDS datasets in Power Automate Flows and Logic Apps


Thanura Wijesiriwardena's avatarEVOLVED365

During the last 12 months I have been busy working on projects and lost my way a little bit on writing and sharing my experiences with the community. However on a positive note I learned a lot of new things during that period and now I’ve got some great content planned and waiting to be shared with you all.

Some of those learnings were around working with large CDS datasets in Microsoft Power Automate Flows and Azure Logic Apps. Here are some of those easy to learn tips, tricks, guidelines and limitations that will help you for sure.

Connecting to a Common Data Service (CDS) environment

There are two main connectors you can use. “Common Data Service” connector and “Common Data Service (current environment)” connector. Let’s look at few points to consider when selecting a connector for your workflow.

Common Data Service connectorCommon Data Service (current…

View original post 1,303 more words

Fixed – AADSTS65001: The user or administrator has not consented to use the application with ID


The below error occurs for the application registered with Azure AD (Delegated Permissions), which requires either user or an administrator’s consent for the permissions it needs.

“Azure.Identity.AuthenticationFailedException: ‘UsernamePasswordCredential authentication failed: AADSTS65001: The user or administrator has not consented to use the application with ID ‘9ea6c0e6-5ab5-4816-b787-5391cd41fd7b’ named ‘MyKVApp’. Send an interactive authorization request for this user and resource.”

The below setting specifies that all users can allow applications to access the organization’s data on their behalf.


Here the admin can grant the consent through the portal as shown below from Home > App > API Permissions



or can also use Consent URL

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/manage-apps/grant-admin-consent#construct-the-url-for-granting-tenant-wide-admin-consent

https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant-id}/adminconsent?client_id={client-id}


When trying to access the consent URL using another non-admin user, we might get the below message, which means that only the admin can provide the required consent.


Signing in with the Admin account presents the below message for granting the app the required permissions.


Admin can also revoke the admin consent (along with the permission as shown below) from the portal as shown below through Remove admin consent option.


Get all the details here –

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/application-consent-experience#consent-and-permissions

Hope it helps..


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User multiplexing- SSIS (KingswaySoft) + Dynamics 365 CE / CDS / Dataverse


Must read article on managing API limits

Thanks – Gustaf Westerlund