This is part-1 of a multi-series blog on Data Export Service
and Dynamics 365 online. This blog is an introduction to and discussing the use case for
Data Export service.
The performance impact of Reporting and Advanced Analytics
in Dynamics 365 -
Once the Dynamics 365 application goes live, the
transaction and operational data gets generated and stored in the instance.
Business would like to run reports on the stored data and be able to do
analysis comparing data from different periods, calculating averages and other advanced
analysis.
Generating Reports in Dynamics 365 online can be complex and
sometimes it can hinder performance of the system when large # of users are
running complex voluminous reports.
As a general rule Dynamics 365 is NOT a Data Warehouse
Reporting application. With Dynamics 365 online it becomes imperative to limit
its usage as one (Data warehouse).
There are multiple options to overcome the above restraints
as discussed below –
1. Copy and restore the Dynamics 365 online instance into
another (sandbox) reporting instance – Than run reports on the new instance
which does not affect the current production users.
– This is a manual process and may not be ideal for ongoing
daily reporting / analysis.
2. Sync data from Dynamics 365 online instance to Azure SQL
and run reporting and analytics from within Azure SQL
One of the option provided by Microsoft for this is the Data
Export Service with Dynamics 365 online.
What is the Data Export Service?
“Data Export is an add-on service made
available as a Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) solution that adds the ability
to replicate Dynamics 365 (online) data to a Microsoft Azure SQL Database store
in a customer-owned Microsoft Azure subscription. The supported target
destinations are Microsoft Azure SQL Database and Microsoft Azure SQL Server on
Microsoft Azure virtual machines. Data Export intelligently synchronizes the
entire Dynamics 365 schema and data initially and thereafter synchronizes on a
continuous basis as changes occur (delta changes) in the Microsoft Dynamics 365
(online) system.”
What are the possible use cases for
Dynamics 365 data in Azure SQL?
1. As a Reporting database - it reduces
the constraints on the Production instance. Azure SQL can be scaled to meet the
performance needs for Reporting and Analytics.
2. For Advanced Analytics using Power BI –
(I will be discussing more about this in my blogs)
3. For building machine learning models –
SQL Server Machine Learning Services work with Azure SQL databases and can be
used for developing Machine Learning models.
As the need for AI and ML grows so will
the demand for accessing the data in a fast, secure and scalable manner.
Enterprise will stand to benefit using the Data Export Service and getting
access to the data from Azure SQL service.
4. Providing read access to data to 3rd
party vendors / partners. Multiple data export service profiles can be set-up
to export data to 1 or more Azure SQL database
Pre-requisite for Data export service –
1. Azure SQL Database subscription or
Azure SQL Server on Azure VM
2. Azure Key Vault subscription in the
same tenant as Dynamics 365 to allow Data export service to secure access Azure
SQL
3. Dynamics 365 online 2016 or later
version with the Data Export solution installed. (Note: Data Export Service
will not work with sandbox instances)
Installing the Data Export solution –
1. From within Dynamics 365 go to Settings
> Customization's > Dynamics marketplace and search for Data Export
Service. Click on Get it now and enter the necessary details
2. The Data Export Service app window
opens and your current instance is selected as default. Agree to the terms
 |
| Select / Connect to Dynamics 365 instance |
3. The solution will be installed within
Dynamics 365 as a managed solution
 |
| Managed solution |
And you will see the Data Export button in
the System tab
 |
| Button |
Please leave your comments and any other
use case that you may consider for Data Export Service.
Thanks for reading.
Mihir Shah
365WithoutCode
