A PostgreSQL Interface for Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. From standard Drivers to BI and Analytics tools, PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. Using our JDBC Drivers, you can now create PostgreSQL entry-points that you can connect to from any standard client.

To access Dynamics 365 Business Central data as a PostgreSQL database, use the CData JDBC Driver for Dynamics 365 Business Central and a JDBC foreign data wrapper (FDW). In this article, we compile the FDW, install it, and query Dynamics 365 Business Central data from PostgreSQL Server.

Connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central Data as a JDBC Data Source

To connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central as a JDBC data source, you will need the following:

• Driver JAR path: The JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

• Driver class: cdata.jdbc.d365businesscentral.D365BusinessCentralDriver

• JDBC URL: The URL must start with "jdbc:d365businesscentral:" and can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

  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.

  A typical JDBC URL is below:

  jdbc:d365businesscentral:OrganizationUrl=https://myaccount.financials.dynamics.com/;

Build the JDBC Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The jdbc2_fdw extension is used as an example (downloadable here).

1. Add a symlink from the shared object for your version of the JRE to /usr/lib/libjvm.so. For example: ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjvm.so /usr/lib/libjvm.so
2. Start the build: make install USE_PGXS=1

Query Dynamics 365 Business Central Data as a PostgreSQL Database

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Dynamics 365 Business Central data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database: CREATE EXTENSION jdbc2_fdw;
3. Create a server object for Dynamics 365 Business Central: CREATE SERVER D365BusinessCentral FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER jdbc2_fdw OPTIONS ( drivername 'cdata.jdbc.d365businesscentral.D365BusinessCentralDriver', url 'jdbc:d365businesscentral:OrganizationUrl=https://myaccount.financials.dynamics.com/;', querytimeout '15', jarfile '/home/MyUser/CData/CData\ JDBC\ Driver\ for\ Salesforce MyDriverEdition/lib/cdata.jdbc.d365businesscentral.jar');
4. Create a user mapping for the username and password of a user known to the MySQL daemon. CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER D365BusinessCentral OPTIONS ( username 'admin', password 'test');
5. Create a foreign table in your local database: postgres=# CREATE FOREIGN TABLE accounts ( accounts_id text, accounts_accountid text, accounts_Name numeric) SERVER D365BusinessCentral OPTIONS ( table_name 'accounts');