We currently use Microsoft Dynamics CRM v4 on-premises. Our data warehouse guys use a direct database link to get access to the data. Is this same functionality possible if you go with the CRM 2013 Online / Cloud option?
If, like I suspect that it's not, what API's are available (if any) to achieve this (or some other method)?
I've searched a lot for this but found nothing.
Dynamics CRM Online doesn't provide direct access to the SQL database.
For interaction with the data is necessary to use the CRM Web Services, REST and SOAP endpoints.
Related
If we have Dynamics CRM in one domain and related Azure data factory pipelines to copy data from or to CRM in another domain so will it work or affect the pipelines and working?
It will work. You just need to configure your Dynamics CRM linked service correct. And don't worry about whether they are in a same domain or not.
I was reading the documentation and stuck in a problem that I do not know how to get Dynamics resource for acquiring access_token using any API (I know my CRM root service address but I do not want to hard-code this service name in my code base). Could you please provide me with the solution to this problem?
You need not to hard code it in code base like showed in documentation sample. But normally we will keep this in web.config or app.config xml file just like any connection string & consume it.
Use connection strings in XRM tooling to connect to Common Data Service for Apps
You can use the Online Management API to get a list of all the Dynamics 365 instances in your Office 365 tenant. I believe this is what the Plugin Registration tool does when you check "Display a list of the Organization(s)".
This looks useful:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/developer/online-management-api/sample-quick-start
The C# sample demonstrates how to authenticate to the Online Management API and then retrieve all Customer Engagement instances from your Office 365 tenant.
I put together some code for accessing CRM using the DLL's provided in the SDK download and tried out both the early binding approach and late binding approach.
What I'd like to do is in addition to having some custom entities that my users will access in Dynamics (through the Dynamics UI in the cloud), I also want to build some Android apps that talk to Dynamics.
My understanding is that I can talk to Dynamics from Android via REST (assuming I properly handle the authentication and getting tokens using ADAL libraries since my Dynamics instances run on the Microsoft cloud) or I can use the SDK with .NET as a middle-tier.
What's the recommended approach? Is there a best practice? When would I use the DLL's provided in the SDK and maybe wrap them in my own Web API vs. connecting to Dynamics directly via REST?
Please help this noob.
Kind of hard to say, depends on your talents and needs. Here is a great website link to get started though:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2015/01/12/build-your-own-crm-mobile-app-s.aspx
Just a note on the Rest calls, you can only perform CRUD operations by default, and will need to jump through some hoops to perform the other calls.
How can I check how much amount of database size is used by the particular entity? or Is there any way to check data size of an entity in Dynamics CRM online ?
That is not possible without additional actions as far as I know. As a possible workaround you can do following:
Ask MS Support to provide you with latest DB of your organization.
Restore this DB to some SQL server.
Use it for your data-analysis.
I an new to both Dynamics CRM (Hosted) and LINQ, so please forgive my ignorance with this question...
I need to access some data stored in the CRM, but have no idea how to get at it. Normally I would open my SQL Management software and look around for the data, but I cant do that with the Hosted CRM data.
So.... My question is, is there anyway to visualise the 'database' to find the data I need to recal ???
Thanks in advance.
If you want manipulate the data of a CRM 2011 instance is necessary to follow some rules.
For CRUD and business operations you need use the CRM 2011 web services (also in combination with LINQ)
Is also possible (if you can connect to the DB) to read the data from Filtered Views, a Filtered View is a view mapped on a standard CRM entity (for example to read the data from the entity Account you can use the view FilteredAccount)
Read or modify the data directly from the tables is not supported.
If you want to know the structure of the entities you can use the Customization area inside CRM, or install the Metadata Browser (a solution available inside the CRM 2011 SDK) to see the attributes and the relationships.
A good starting point is always the CRM 2011 SDK, you can download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24004
Inside you will find many examples (if you want to use LINQ check the early-bound ones) and the assemblies and tools for development.
Download the SDK and import the Metadata Browser managed solution (\sdk\tools\metadatabrowser\metadatabrowser_2_0_0_0_managed.zip) into your CRM Live instance.
You could also try downloading the database schema for the out-of-the-box database setup. Not really optimal but it might work for you.
You could also install a local version of Dynamics CRM (say in a virtual machine) for testing (either via MSDN or the free trial download.) This will give you SQL access to the database.
I recommend going with the Metadata Browser, which will probably get you the information that you need. Since the Metadata Browser is a managed solution you can install and remove it without impacting the Default Solution or any other solution in the organization.
Actually it turns out it is possible to work with the Dynamics CRM Online 'database' in much the same way as you can with any number of SQL Manager tools.
Linqpad4 - allows you to work with a number of environments and write your queries in VB, C# and even SQL.
It looks like a great tool, and has already helped me greatly, it certainly makes the Dynamics / LINQ scenario much easier to explore and learn about.
LinqPad4 can be downloaded here: [http://www.linqpad.net/]
and the driver(s) for Dynamics CRM can be downloaded here: [http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/crmlinqpad]
I strongly recommend it.