I have allready posted about the Customer Lookup, but there is a bug ATM that will prevent you from setting the customer lookup correctly.
Luckily Microsoft has provided us with a temporary workaround while they figure out how they are going to support polymorphic lookups like Customer in dataflows 👌
The Problem
When trying to map customer lookup you won’t be able to see the correct lookup in the DataFlow. It may differ what you see, but it could be a different combination of fields like this:
All of the fields that have “Fieldsomething.Fieldsomethingelse” are lookups. The Customer lookup does not work as intended here, even though the field “ParentCustomerID” is the correct field to use. In a previous post I showed how to get around this issue, but Microsoft removed the projects configuration options. After talking to support, they showed me how to make it work again !!🙏💪
This is a quick guide to the simplest form of SSIS import. I will not cover all of the amazing ETL possibilities you can do with SSIS, because I am not the correct person to set this up:)
The background for this post is also trying to learn the differences between DataFlow and SSIS in regards to API stats online.
The setup
Install BIDS LINK HERE – If you don’t have visual studio
The structure is very simple here. Get file, add one data column and then import to dynamics.
The flat file I am getting is a simple .csv file and you see the following columns.
Next step is a bit odd, but that’s how lookups work in SSIS. I have to create a new column that is called “account”, because i have to define the lookup type. This Derived Column does nothing else.
In the end we connect to Dynamics via the KingswaySoft connector.
I have chosen to use alternate keys. If you wonder what this is, look at my previous post about alternate keys and DataFlow.
Then I click on columns to map the fields
For the lookup we connect to ParentCustomer. Once you have mapped the field, i can choose to what field to match on the Account. I open the “…” and here I choose the primary key for account as matching. You could use whatever you want, but I have created alternate key for account on AccoundNumber.
The result
I ran this test during the night time at the same time as DataFlow. SSIS used 1 hour and 22 minutes for the exact same file, and that is fine by me. There are so many different variables in online load times, that 20 minutes doesn’t really prove anything.
What about the API?
I wrote a post about DataFlow and API. Mostly because I was curious about the analytics within CDS. I don’t understand the numbers i see, so I have written to Support about the numbers. What I heard back was because of the batch of records being entered, this should be about right…
If this is correct, SSIS is a lot more efficient in the API calls to Dynamics, but took more time in this one single test i performed.
SSIS = 3,501 API Calls DataFlow = 13,544 API Calls
I have been posting a lot from the Data Flow in Power Platform, because I needed to use it internally. So far this tool is extremely interesting, but I am not sure it is 100% clear to me how it all works.
This is why i decided to import 94.000 contacts to 1 account, to see how fast/slow it was. I also wanted to monitor how much this affects the API or any other stuff in the CDS/Dynamcis base. This post is mostly for my own curiosity.
I decided to start with a Dynamics instances that didn’t have any users active, and no data. The following data is gathered from https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com.
The run itself didn’t show much of timestamps, so i opened an advanced find
First Record
Last Record
So it used 1 hour for 94883 records. Not really sure how we can measure this anymore, because of speed caps hitting a little randomly. I would say this is decent speed when importing. 94883 contacts / 60 minutes / 60 seconds = 26,35 contacts pr second
The storage grew a fair bit…. 2.72GB -> 3.44GB = 720 MB = 0,007 MB pr contact
This is the old Address entity.. Anyone even use this anymore???
How about API calls?
The first time i ran this, it was only create. Then i did a second round, and all I got was 13,544 API calls. I am not sure I trust the Analytics yet!
Conclusion
After running the import 2 times, i never got any indication about API usage. There must be something wrong with the statistics here? I did almost 100k upserts, and there is nothing to prove that I have accept for the Creates under performing operations. This alone would make this an unbelievable integration platform for CDS because of the API’s we are saving. I understand that this is probably not the case, and there must be something wrong with the reporting.
That being said. No one has been able to tell me if this cost any money. If this is considered a part of Dynamics/PowerPlatform license i am impressed. A truly hidden GEM.
I really hope they continue to work on this product to make integrations simple! It’s the gives me the power to integrate without knowing code!! #lessCodeMorePower
I still don’t know if this is local to my tennant, but I have tried in 2 different orgs, and I always get an error with Customer field for Contact. This post is almost identical to the Set Parent Lookup, but there are some differences in the end.
Setup Contact
I have one Excel file with 6 contacts. They are linked to the account with number 311. The unique identifier I have on contact is email.
I setup a key for email on contact, so that the system will understand what to write to.
Setup Account
On the Account I have 2 fields for number matching, because I have different systems that integrate, but it doesn’t matter in this case. PO Account Number is what we are going to use, and I will try to explain why (based on my findings).
PS: Both Account Number and PO Account Number are Alternate Keys on Account!!
Setup Data Flow
Go to https://make.powerapps.com and start a new Data Flow project. In this case I am choosing the Excel file for simplicity. I have uploaded the Excel file to One Drive, so that it is available at all times online.
In the Excel file I had to make sure that the first row was headers before i continue
During the mapping I will see both the Alternate Keys I have for account. Normally you probably only have 1 Alternate Key for Account, but my setup requires 2 because of 2 different systems integrating against 2 different numbers. For blog i am using value 311, so it doesn’t really matter here.
When done mapping Account Number (again it doesn’t matter if I choose one of the other) continue to the next step. I choose a manual refresh, and it get stuck here.
You will also see an error in the data flow projects.
Open data integrations, and open the one that failed.
From here you can open the mapping table
This is where you most likely will see a missing mapping. For some reason it cancels out my mapping. I have tried this in 2 environments and same issues. Every time i choose the Customer Lookup i have this problem.
Click on the destination field, and navigate WAY to the bottom.
This is where I believe the bug is located. Data Flows happens to be sensitive to what Alternate Key was created last. This key is the last thing that I published on Account, and therefore it is in the list. If you only have 1 alternate key, this will show.
Again, it doesn’t matter in this demo because i have 311 in both KEY fields.
The Work Around
After you save the changes, open Data integration. Here you will setup a schedule to run from the admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com.
Click save schedule and wait for it to run. PS!! Remember to stop the schedule when done!
For the Final result you will see 6 contacts connected to the Account
Next up is how long does it take to import 94000 contacts to CDS via Data Flow!
This blog post is step 3 of the Data Flow setup in combination with On Premise Gateway. In the last post in imported all of our ERP accounts to the CDS database. Now I wanted to import all active projects, and connect them to the the Accounts in CDS. There are a few odd things you have to do in the setup to make this work, but I will try to outline this without being to detailed..
First off we need to get familiar with the Alternative Keys in Dynamcis. In Account I created alternative key for AccountNumber. I need to do the same for Project.
The field is also represented on the form. I choose to keep these as “Single Line Of Text”. Just keep it simple, because this doesn’t need to be advanced.
This is important so the import is able to match every time runs. Remember that the Data Flow is doing UPSERTS. It will create a new record if it can’t find the project number. Imports CAN’T connect to GUID’s because my ERP system does not have the CRM GUID.
Make.PowerApps.com
The most important thing you do here, is make sure you have the correct environment!! 😉
If you don’t understand this setup, look at my first blog about the DataGateway
The important pieces of information here are: * Project Number * Project Name *Account Number
This is all i need to create a project in CRM and connect it to the Account
Connecting to Lookup
This is where you need to pay close attention. First you choose the project (or other entity) from a list of existing entities. The Alternate Key will display if you have done this correctly. If nothing is there you have to go back and start again with alternate keys
There are 2 lookups on project. Account and Contact. Account has 2 alternate keys, and Contact has 1 alternate key.
Account:
Contact:
This is why you will see 3 fields in the beginning of the mapping 1. ncg_Account.AccountNumber – Account looup identifier 2. ncg_Account.ncg_POAccountNumber – Accound lookup identifier 3. ncg_CustomerContact.EMailAddress1 – Contact lookup identifier
I am using the AccountNumber for a different purpose, so let’s just forget this one for now. I am using the Account Number from ERP to the ERP field on the Account entity to create a match.
Schedule
After you have set a schedule, you should see the results in CRM:) In a later post I will tell you why I am connecting the project records to dynamics. A quick hint, Forms PRO and NPS!
We need to do one config in CRM/CDS before we continue. For the integration to work we need to create a KEY for it to match on. The source doesn’t know of GUID, so I create a key for “Account Number”. In Norway we are lucky that this number is unique and applies to all organization’s.
Open the entity you are integration to (Account for me), and create a new field called KEY. I am choosing to use the “Account Number” field here as my Unique KEY. Remember to publish changes!!
First thing I do is limit the number of accounts while testing.
Then I remove all the blank fields in the KEY, to make it equal to the user input in Dynamics. You don’t have to do this, but chose to for simplicity.
In the next step you choose the entity to connect to in CDS/CRM, and map the field. I am choosing to only map “Name” and “Account Number” during the test.
And the magic continues. Here you can setup how often you wan this awesome sync to happen. Our data is fairly static, so once a week is fine:)
Wait until the query is done, and check out the newly created/updated Accounts in Dynamics. This is just a gamechanger for me.
So the On-Premise data Gateway itself might not be the most awesome thing in history, but in combination with the data integration of PowerApps it is just incredible! Carina wrote about this earlier, but I had to see it for myself 🙂
My example is based on the need to integrate my On-Prem ERP (SQL) server with Dynamics 365 online (aka PowerApps).
This method does require that you have username/password credentials to a view in SQL that will allow you to read data. After the setup, Part 2 – Final Finnish.
I need data from On-premise to Online
I needed to integrate my ERP system (On-Premise) to D365 in the cloud. There are several ways to complete this normally with code, SSIS, Scribe etc. I wanted to learn what the PowerPlatform was capable of.
I am not a developer, so I am always seeking for solutions considered No-Code, Low-Code. Integrations was something I always had to involve developers to complete.
The software should be installed on a server, because of the need for 24/7 uptime. While testing, you can easily install the software on your personal computer as long as it is in the same network as the SQL database you are trying to connect to.
Open the software, and set it up. I chose to use my login credentials for this action. These credentials where also the ones that were “creators” in Dynamics.
Remember the Gateway Name and Password
When this is done you should find the Gateway in your PowerApps. NB!!! It will only install under the Default instance for now!!
Check connection with PowerApps
Last step is to open up your browser to PowerApps and see if we can retrieve the data. Open PowerApps
Make sure you navigate to the Dynamics Production environment
Then you open a new integration project
From here you connect to the On-Prem SQL DataGateway. Don’t worry, the credentials and IP are not real here:)
So the important thing on the next step is to use the credentials for your SQL server. These credentials only need to be read from a database. This means that you might have to ask someone to create read credentials for your database.
Choose the tables you want to sync. Debitor is Accounts in our ERP system.
If you are lucky, you will see the following result!! You are now one step closer to actually complete a NO-Code integration with an onprem SQL server.
CRM Keeper 