Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a suite of cloud-based business application platforms designed to modernize enterprise resource planning, operations and customer relationship management. 

By harnessing the capabilities of these applications, organizations can enhance agility, achieve operational excellence and deliver exceptional customer experiences. The suite of the Dynamics 365 cloud applications contains expansive amounts of data that can provide valuable insights into sales, finance, inventory, customer behavior and more. 

So how can you seamlessly combine this wealth of data, break down data silos, conduct predictive analysis and facilitate cross functional decision-making? 

One highly effective approach is through the practice of data ingestion. This is the process of centralizing data from various sources, transforming it into a suitable format and loading it into a destination where it’s stored, analyzed and leveraged to drive actionable insights. 

That’s why we’re excited to announce our new and upcoming connectors for Microsoft Dynamics 365. 

Centralize your data with Fivetran 

With Fivetran's out-of-the-box connectors for Dynamics 365, you can seamlessly connect and centralize data from various sources, including Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, our upcoming Microsoft Dynamics Business Central connector, and the newly released Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance connector. By streamlining this process, Fivetran empowers organizations to eliminate data silos, unlock the full potential of their data and make informed decisions that drive success. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance 

Empower your team to measure financial performance, vendor and supplier performance, cash flow, cost optimization trends and more. 

How does Fivetran extract data from Dynamics 365 Finance? 

Our Dynamics 365 Finance connector provides access to the raw underlying data directly from the source, enabling you to unify and analyze all your financial data with ease in a single platform. Fivetran leverages Microsoft’s recently launched  “export to data lake” solution for this connector. By Microsoft exporting the Dynamics Finance data to Azure Data Lake (ADLS) in the Common Data Model format, Fivetran captures all the raw data exported, including  incremental data captured through the change feed.  

By aligning with Microsoft’s recommendation to transition away from the Bring Your Own Database solution for data warehousing use cases, our connector ensures compatibility with the latest industry standards. Additionally, Fivetran’s support for syncing source tables, rather than just entities, provides an additional advantage. With the Fivetran connector, you not only benefit from enhanced functionality of the Export to ADLS solution, but you also save significant costs compared to the Bring Your Own Database option. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM 

Leverage Fivetran’s Dynamics 365 CRM connector to fuel valuable projects such as marketing funnel optimization, attribution analysis or creating a Customer 360. The connector offers data on three main modules: marketing, sales and services. It further unlocks valuable insights into campaign activity, service incidents, invoicing and much more — enabling you to make data-driven decisions effortlessly. 

How does Fivetran extract data from Dynamics 365 CRM? 

Within Dynamics 365 CRM, data is organized in entity sets. An entity is a collection of records used to store data. Fivetran’s connector to Dynamics 365 CRM leverages Microsoft Dataverse and utilizes these entity sets to retrieve data from the platform, supporting both standard and custom entities. This provides access to raw data and can tap into elements such as sales, marketing, customer services and field services out of all seven elements. 

How can you utilize this data?

Several prominent customers leverage the data from these connectors to drive the following projects:

Accelerating Financial Reconciliation

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance plays a crucial role in storing vital data for financial reconciliation and captures a broad spectrum of information, encompassing general ledger transactions, custom financial reports, bank reconciliations, vendor transactions, cash flows, budgets and more. 

Financial reconciliation is a mandatory quarterly activity for most organizations. It involves consolidating records from various sources, which is a complex task due to the dynamic nature of financial data. 

Leveraging an automated ETL tool such as Fivetran can help scale the process of achieving accurate, real-time financial reconciliation, while saving significant time and effort required. 

Improving Revenue Analysis

Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 CRM provide comprehensive real-time metrics for tracking revenue streams, revenue recognition, pipeline progress and other crucial business indicators. By properly leveraging this valuable data, organizations can gain insights into their revenue streams, enabling them to identify the most profitable products or channels. Additionally, they can pinpoint cost reductions and make informed decisions based on historical comparisons. 

With Fivetran, you can empower your teams to seamlessly access and utilize this insightful data in real-time. Fivetran’s robust transformation capabilities allow for easy data modeling and aggregation. Most importantly, Fivetran allows you to centralize data from multiple sources, 

enabling comprehensive revenue analysis across multiple dimensions, such as product lines, customer segments or geographical regions.

Why use Fivetran? 

Fivetran’s connector for Dynamics 365 Finance leverages Microsoft’s recently launched “export to data lake” solution. The connector aligns with Microsoft’s recommendation to transition away from Bring Your Own Database solutions for data warehousing use cases. 

In contrast, the Dynamics 365 CRM connector utilizes Microsoft Dataverse and entity sets to access and retrieve data. Along with innovating and aligning with Microsoft’s recommendation, the connectors offers the following features to jumpstart your analysis: 

1. Incremental Extracts: Fivetran leverages the change feed files synced into ADLS, allowing it to extract new, updated or deleted changed data after the initial historical sync. This saves significant costs and reduces the time required for sync and load. 
2. Custom Data: Fivetran captures your organization's custom tables and syncs the specific business objects that hold the greatest value for your operations, enabling tailored and focused analysis.
3. Delete Capture: Fivetran ensures data integrity by capturing deleted records through the change feed and soft deleting them in your destination, preserving a comprehensive and accurate data history.  
4. API Configuration: Spare your team the cost of broken pipelines with Fivetran's REST API that provides multiple endpoints that enable essential key management actions.
5. Universal Column Masking & Hashing: Fivetran anonymizes customers’ PII in your destination by anonymizing sensitive data columns through hashing, without compromising  valuable insights. 

With these powerful features, Fivetran’s connector for Dynamics 365 CRM and Dynamics 365 Finance empowers you to activate and analyze your Microsoft Dynamics data effectively. Take the first step toward unlocking the full potential of your CRM data by signing up for the connector now.

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