Access Dynamics 365 Business Central Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central connects Dynamics 365 Business Central data to Mule applications enabling read , write, update, and delete functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for Dynamics 365 Business Central data. The application created allows you to request Dynamics 365 Business Central data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the 200+ available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector.
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.d365businesscentral.jar).
   • Set the URL to the connection string for 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.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Dynamics 365 Business Central JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.d365businesscentral.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.d365businesscentral.D365BusinessCentralDriver.
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request Dynamics 365 Business Central data. For example: SELECT accountid, Name FROM Accounts
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
           

9. To view your Dynamics 365 Business Central data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The Dynamics 365 Business Central data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with Dynamics 365 Business Central data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.