Connecting Bold BI to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales and Service

Bold BI dashboard designer supports connecting Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales and Customer Service web services through REST API.

Choose Microsoft Dynamics CRM data source

To configure the Microsoft Dynamics CRM data source, follow the below steps:

Click the Data Sources button in the configuration panel to add a new data connection.
Click CREATE NEW to launch a new connection from the connection panel.
Select the Microsoft Dynamics CRM connection in the connection panel.

NOTE: You can also create a data source from the home page by clicking the Data Sources menu from left menu panel and Create Data Source from the data sources page.

Choose data source from server

Authentication with Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Use the following steps to authenticate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM web service.

Click the data source, you will be prompted with a window. Enter the Service URL/ Organization URL of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM account to proceed.
After that you will be prompted with a login window. Enter the credentials of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM account to authorize.
If the window prompt asks permission to access your Microsoft Dynamics CRM account Click Allow in the authorization window to accept the scopes requested by Bold BI dashboards.

NOTE: If the permission is denied, the account will not be accessible from the dashboard.
Set a name to identify the account and click Next.
You have now successfully authorized your connection. Click Connect to continue with the data source connection.
To connect via existing account, refer Connected Accounts.

NOTE: If you need to connect to another account click Connect New Account.

Connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Create Microsoft Dynamics CRM data source

After successful authentication, the NEW DATA SOURCE configuration panel opens. Follow the below steps to create Microsoft Dynamics CRM data source.

Enter a name and description (optional) for the data source.
Enter a valid Microsoft Dynamics CRM REST API endpoint in the URL textbox. Refer the Microsoft Dynamics CRM API documentation for more details.

Example:https://<:your_organization_url>/api/data/v9.0/reports
Select GET method for the REST API in Method combo box.
In Max Rows, enter the maximum number of rows to be fetched from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM data source. This value is used to fetch the data from Microsoft Dynamics CRM data source via pagination.
Choose a time interval for Refresh Settings using the combo box, to trigger the Rest API request periodically to keep the data in sync with our dashboard.
Select JSON data type in Data Format combo box.
The authentication type will be set to Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically since OAuth is used for authenticating with Microsoft Dynamics CRM account.

You can also edit the connection information set here using the Edit Connection option.

Additional information

Max Rows	Most of the REST APIs return only fewer data on a single API request. To pull the amount of data you need, set a value in this field. Pagination is handled internally and will fetch the amount of data you need.
Refresh Settings	Period of time before next refresh call is triggered. This will automatically trigger a call for the API configured in the data source to keep the data up to date. If you do not want to sync your new data, choose ‘Never’.

Setting up the URL

To find your organization URL refer the Microsoft documentation, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/admin/add-instance-subscription

Replace it in the URL,

https://sampleorg.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.0/teams

For more information on the API endpoints available for this data source, refer to their official:

Microsoft dynamic sales API Documentation

Microsoft dynamic service API Documentation

Sample queries

Teams

https://sampleorg.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.0/teams

Reports

https://sampleorg.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.0/reports

Preview and data import

Click Preview & Connect to connect with the configurations set.
The Choose Schema(s) dialog opens. The schema represents the key fields of JSON data retrieved from Microsoft Dynamics CRM Rest API request. This dialog displays a list of schemas in treeview and its corresponding values in grid for preview. Select required schema(s) from treeview to use in designer and click Connect.
Now, the data design view page with selected table schema opens. Drag and drop the table.
Click Save to save the data source with a relevant name.

Connected accounts for OAuth data sources

If you have already logged into the account and authenticated with web data source, the account information will be listed here. You can select one of the accounts or connect to a new account by clicking the Connect New Account button.

OAuth

You can edit, delete and re-authorize this account from the Connected Accounts page.

Manage Accounts

NOTE: Switching between Dynamics CRM Sales and Customer Service will require authorization of the account due to scope changes. Click Authorize to proceed.

Manage Accounts