How to use data from local databases in dynamics 365 marketing?

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Posted on by flypig

Dear,

Our business data is in our own database. I would like to ask how to connect to our database with dynamics 365 marketing and customize the fields in marketing based on our business data?

thanks in advance!

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cloflyMao 25,210 on at

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Hi Partner,

You can refer to following tutorials to load data of your own database to Dynamics.

https://nishantrana.me/2020/07/06/configuring-on-premises-data-gateway-to-connect-tosql-server-on-premise-data-source-power-platform/

https://nishantrana.me/2020/07/07/load-data-from-sql-on-premise-to-cds-common-data-service-using-power-platform-dataflows-in-power-apps/

Regards,

Clofly

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flypig 5 on at

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Hi Partner,

thanks for your answer.

but these articles only show how to connect local database to Power BI, but did not show how to sync data from power BI to dynamics 365 marketing.

I have been searching in dynamics 365 marketing for a long time and I have not found the option to connect to external data sources. The only option to import data is from a csv file or an excel file. The solution I want is to connect from dynamics 365 marketing to external data sources, such as database, and then synchronize contact, account and other entities from the database to marketing, and I hope that these data can be refreshed at any time based on the information in the database.

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cloflyMao 25,210 on at

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Hi flypig,

Maybe I posted wrong articles or links, but having checked content of them again, I am sure that the series of articles are actually talking about connecting to external database and import data of the database to Dynamics instead of Power BI.

Summary:

Link 1: We download an on-premises data gateway to our local machine, and the software will help our local database to connect to cloud: a corresponding connection will be created in Power Apps.

(It could be regarded as a data source, and Power BI is only mentioned here that we can export data from the connection to Power BI.)

Link 2: Data in the connection will be loaded into table via Dataflow, and we can insert these data as entities records to our Dynamics. The author has also mentioned that we can just click refresh button of the dataflow to sync new row of database to Dynamics.

Please let me know whether I posted non-related tutorial.

In addition, we can also use database connectors(connectors for SQL Server and Oracle are all available) of Power Automate to import data from external database to Dynamics.

Here is a tutorial about how to connect to Oracle in flow:

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/connecting-to-oracle-database-from-powerapps-flow-and-logic-apps/

Then run the flow on a schedule.

(This way will also ask us to install on-premises data gateway from beginning.)

Regards,

Clofly

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flypig 5 on at

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Hi Clofly,

thanks for your reply.

I saw these articles provide a way to connect the local database with power app or Azure. This may be the beginning of a solution. But I don’t know the relationship between power app and dynamics 365, or how to connect their data. And I haven’t found any specific option in dynamics 365 marketing to connect to the data source in the power app, so I can’t use the information in these articles you posted to solve my problem, just can continue to explore on the basis of this information.

My specific question is: I want to find a way in dynamics 365 marketing (not dynamics 365) to connect to my oracle database and customize entities based on the data in the database. I guess this may require secondary development in dynamics 365 marketing.

Regards,

flypig

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cloflyMao 25,210 on at

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Hi flypig,

Here is documentation explanation about their relationship:

Dynamics 365 apps, such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing also use the underlying data platform (Dataverse) used by Power Apps to store and secure data. This enables you to build apps using Power Apps and Dataverse directly against your core business data already used within Dynamics 365 without the need for integration.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/powerapps-overview#power-apps-and-dynamics-365

In a word, Dynamics 365 can be regarded as a group of apps built by Power App, and Power App provides some connectors for users to connect their Dynamics 365 to other data sources.(It is a two-way process.)

The article and the graph might help you to understand the relationship between Power App and Dynamics 365:

https://readyxrm.blog/2020/06/05/you-likely-dont-need-dynamics-crm-you-need-a-power-app/

So let's back to your specific question: even though for Dynamics 365 Marketing, it is still a Power App built app.(Of course there are some dedicated solutions and components developed by MS).

Therefore, due to this fact, PowerApps could still be your option to connect to your oracle database, just like we customize other Dynamics 365 apps.

However, it is still possible to connect to other DBs using Plug-in, and it can be regarded as traditional and secondary development, e.g: ClickDimensions, a third party solution provider who extends marketing module with their customization before the release of Dynamics 365 for Marketing app.

While Flow or other PowerApps tool such as on-premises data gateway are the recommended modern way because Dynamics 365 is now running on Cloud, heavy code task is less required to customization nowadays.

Regards,

Clofly

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Community Member on at

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If you can push changes from your Orcle DB you can setup a REST endpoint using Power Automate. Then you can handle the data however you need and do an update/insert with the Common Data Service actions.

Like Colfly said, Common Data Service, Power Automate, Dynamics 365 (marketing, sales, etc.) its all on the same platform so its 'integrated', just using different names.

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