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How is the data in MS Dynamics Nav stored? Is it a data warehouse and how do I access it?

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Posted on by youngchea 5

I realize the question may be a little bit confusing but that's b/c I'm confused.  So I am a contractor and assisting a company who utilizes Nav to catalog all their business needs. In my full time role, I work for a tech company where I am able to access all of our data via SQL .  Our data is stored in a bunch of different tables and I can query those tables for what I need and join them if need be (quite often) to extract that data.

I am stepping into this contractor role with little to no info.  This company is not very technologically savvy.  They have given me access to Nav but it is quite confusing to me.  First and foremost, I want to see if tables exists, where they're located, what's in them and what are the table names etc.  They have a ton of data in Nav, I just don't know how to see it and access it beyond the Nav interface.  Ultimately, my goal is to take the data and connect it to Tableau and create data visualization dashboards.

Can someone please help me with this?

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  • Suggested answer
    Marco Mels Profile Picture
    Marco Mels on at
    RE: How is the data in MS Dynamics Nav stored? Is it a data warehouse and how do I access it?

    Hello,

    docs.microsoft.com/.../admin-powerbi-setup

    Thanks.

  • youngchea Profile Picture
    youngchea 5 on at
    RE: How is the data in MS Dynamics Nav stored? Is it a data warehouse and how do I access it?

    Thank you!  When going to File > Database > Open I can see the the server type (MS SQL Server), server name and database name.  It asks for user id and password which I don't have.  

    The ultimate goal is to build data visualization dashboards.  I initially mentioned Tableau but now I am also considering PowerBI given that this company is already in the MS ecosystem.  Right now they are using Jet to analyze their data.

    I guess my next questions are:

    - Where do I go to actually explore this data and write SQL queries?

    - How do I connect their NAV data to PowerBI?

    - Based off your answers, it might not make sense to upgrade to the latest version.  However, given they are on a version of NAV that is over ten years old and the whole purpose of this project is to modernize the way they view and access their data, I feel like if there was ever a time to upgrade, it would be now. I don't want to put the cart before the horse and jump straight to the visualization when the back end is outdated.

    Would love to get your thoughts.

  • Suggested answer
    Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member Microsoft Employee on at
    RE: How is the data in MS Dynamics Nav stored? Is it a data warehouse and how do I access it?

    Hi, 

    Its a permission issue. Either you need to have appropriate permission assigned to your user id or use user id which has SUPER permission assigned.

  • youngchea Profile Picture
    youngchea 5 on at
    RE: How is the data in MS Dynamics Nav stored? Is it a data warehouse and how do I access it?

    Thank you for that link. For your reference, the company I am working with is using MS Dynamics NAV 2009 R2. Extremely outdated! When I go to File > Database > Information is greyed out and I cannot click it.

    I did some research and found that is how I am suppose to access the database but not sure what to do if it's greyed out.  Is it just a permissions issue?  Or is it something else?

    Do you think I should push the company to upgrade to the latest/newest version of NAV? What options are available to me to access the database given the info above?

  • Suggested answer
    protc Profile Picture
    protc on at
    RE: How is the data in MS Dynamics Nav stored? Is it a data warehouse and how do I access it?

    Hi Partner,

    Thank you for your query,

    May be this could guide you a bit:

    docs.microsoft.com/.../data-access

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