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CData Connect Server

Access Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in PHP through Connect Server



Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central through the standard SQL Server libraries in PHP.

You can use CData Connect Server to access Dynamics 365 Business Central data from SQL Server clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to create a virtual SQL Server database for Dynamics 365 Business Central and connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data in real time through PHP's standard SQL Server interface, i.e. sqlsrv_connect.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Dynamics 365 Business Central, allowing you to easily build reports from live Dynamics 365 Business Central data in PHP — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, PHP generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Dynamics 365 Business Central, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

  1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
  2. Select "Dynamics 365 Business Central" from Available Data Sources.
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

    To authenticate to Dynamics 365 Business Central, you must provide the User and AccessKey properties.

    To obtain the User and AccessKey values, navigate to the Users page in Dynamics 365 Business Central and then click on Edit. The User Name and Web Service Access Key values are what you will enter as the User and AccessKey connection string properties. Note that the User Name is not your email address. It is a shortened user name.

    To connect to data, specify OrganizationUrl. If you have multiple companies in your organization, you must also specify the Company to indicate which company you would like to connect to. Company does not need to be specified if you have only one company.

  4. Click Save Changes
  5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data from PHP.

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual SQL Server database:

  • Server name/Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running.
  • Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized in Connect Server.
  • Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
  • Database Name: Specify the name of the virtual database you created for Dynamics 365 Business Central.
  • Port: Specify the port the service is running on, port 1433 in this example.

sqlsrv_connect

<?php
$serverName = "connect_server_url, 1433"; //Connect Server Address, portNumber (default is 1433)
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"D365BusinessCentral1", "UID"=>"userName", "PWD"=>"password");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);

if( $conn ) {
     echo "Connection established.<br>";
}else{
     echo "Connection could not be established.<br>";
     die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}
?>

PDO

<?php
<?php
$user = my_connect_user
$pass = my_connect_pass

$pdo = new PDO("sqlsrv:Server=connect_server_url,1433;Database=D365BusinessCentral1", $user , $pass);

?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

  1. Query the table; for example, Accounts. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
  2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
  3. Close the connection.

sqlsrv_connect

$result = $sqlsrv_connect->query("SELECT accountid, Name FROM Accounts");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$sqlsrv_connect->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT accountid, Name FROM Accounts");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

SQL Server Access to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data using PHP

You have retrieved live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data using PHP. Now, you can easily access data sources and more — all without replicating Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.