D365 Business Central V1 Connector

This article describes the BC v1 connector including its requirements and configuration instructions. This article is relevant to On-Premise only.

Solver includes a robust connector to Dynamics 365 Business Central, referred to as “D365 BC” or “BC, that is available for purchase. Solver data connectors use Dynamics 365 ODatav4 service to connect to all objects that have been made available within an organization’s Dynamics 365 implementation. Access to this data is controlled through the use of Azure Active Directory or web access key authentication methods. With some pre-configuration on the Dynamics 365 application, a user can quickly load their Dynamics 365 data into Solver Cloud.  

In order for Solver to connect to Business Central, users must have

1. An enabled user account configured with either Web Access Key or Azure AD authentication setup.
2. Expose your ODataV4 Data.
3. Create the Dimension Set Endpoint

This article is relevant to Business Central On Prem customers only. As of April 2021, Business Central Cloud only supports Azure AD authentication to new connections created to the OData service

Configuring Access

Solver’s BC Connector supports both Azure Active Directory and Web Access Key Authentication.

1. Azure Active Directory is required for Business Central Cloud Customers
2. Web Access key Authentication is only supported for on-premise installs of Business Central

To establish a connection from Solver’s Business Central connector to your Business Central account, please follow the below instructions. 

NOTE: Solver recommends creating a web service user for integration use. 

Follow the below guidelines to input values for each field. 

• OData URL: This is the URL found on the Web Services page. Solver Cloud only needs up to the …ODatav3/, so remove anything after the forward slash. It should look something like this: (https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/v1.0//ODataV3/)
• Username: You only need the username, do not add the domain.
• Web Service Access Key: This is the key generated from Web Service Access Key Section in the Users page under your web service user’s profile.
• Company Name: This is the name of the company for which data should be brought in. This is a case sensitive field.

Setting up a Web Service Access Key

As of Oct 2022, web access keys have been disabled for most BUsiness Central Cloud Customers. The below documentation only applies on on-prem installs of Central

Accessing D365 BC requires a valid user, strongly recommend a dedicated service account, with a web service access key. To create a web service access key:

1. Log into your D365 BC.
2. In the search, search and select User from the results.
3. On the Users page, click on the user who will be used to connect Solver to your BC system.
4. On the user properties page, expand on Web Service Access. A key should appear. If one has not been generated, click Generate Web Service Key in the Actions pane. We will use this key to access your D365 account instead of your account password. 
   
   

Some important notes about Web Access Keys

1. They can expire based off your BC configuration. Please discuss with your BC Admin. Once the Web Access Key expires, your integration in Solver will not authenticate and will error out upon execution
2. Web Access Keys are only accessible by the user whom that key belongs to.

Expose ODatav4.

By default, not all data may be available via the OData v4 service. To confirm what data is available.

The first step is to expose the OData endpoint for the Dimension Set Entries object. This is required in order for the Dimension Set data to be loaded into Solver .

1. Log in to D365 BC. https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/
2. In the search bar, type: Web Services and click the result.
   
3. Click Actions on the toolbar, then click New Document > Create Data Set.
   
4. Follow the Wizard, on the Reporting Data Setup page, provide the following info
   1. Name
   2. Data Source Type: Page
   3. Data SourceID: 479
   4. Data Source Name will automatically populate with Dimension Set Entries.
5. The next page confirms the fields to be made available, leave the default config and click Publish to click Finish.
   

This completes the configuration of the Dimension Set Entries OData endpoint in Business Central.

Configuring an Integration