Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a popular system that integrates seamlessly with Popdock. This connector offers numerous features to enhance data efficiency and customization. While using this connection, there are subtle nuances and best practices that can further optimize your Business Central data management.
Proper settings on the connector itself
When setting up your Business Central connector, there are four parts that go into creating this connection: Tenant ID, Environment, Default Company, and if it is a sandbox or not.
- Tenant ID: The tenant ID is your Business Central account’s identification number. Without it, Popdock cannot identify your company account, preventing connection. Information on where to find your tenant ID can be found here.
- Environment: This setting tells Popdock where to pull data from within your account. Without it, Popdock cannot find data or return data for your lists. Refer to the Knowledge Base article here for details on setting up the environment and the Tenant ID.
- Publish Company: This setting is essential for key features like Query Builder and adding dimensions. It allows Popdock to locate the tables and identify dimensions within your environment. Without it, you cannot use the Query Builder or add dimensions. Detailed information is available in the Knowledge Base article here.
- Is Sandbox: This setting identifies where the connector is for a sandbox or production environment. Select No for a production environment and Yes for a sandbox environment. This choice affects how the extensions section of the connector is displayed. More details can be found in the Query Builder section.
Understanding the Query Builder
The Query Builder for Popdock’s Dynamics 365 Business Central connector allows you to create custom lists and views using Business Central tables. This results in faster and more efficient load times. The Query Builder is ideal for any custom list, supporting fields from any table, whether from a third-party extension or base Business Central.
The Query Builder works on a publishing system that creates an extension within Business Central, labeled as Popdock Customizations. Following Business Central’s security protocols, nothing can be directly published to a production without first existing in a sandbox environment. The publishing system is a one-to-one setup: only one sandbox connector can publish to a sandbox, and only that one sandbox can be published to production. Multiple connectors cannot publish to the same environment, as the extensions will conflict. We recommend using one sandbox connector and one production connector to avoid conflicts.
Below are a few Knowledge Base articles that provide detailed information on the Query Builder and its functionality:
How to Create a Query Builder List – eOne Solutions
Promoting an Extension from a Business Central Sandbox to Production – eOne Solutions
Finding Your Business Central Dependencies for Popdock Query Builder – eOne Solutions
Production vs. Sandbox connectors
As mentioned earlier, the connector settings include a section to determine whether the connector will be a production connector or a sandbox connector. The key difference is how the Extension tab within the connector is configured and used.
- Sandbox: Sandbox connectors are primary used for creating Query Builder lists and widgets that will be published in your environment. The publish tab within the sandbox connector contains all your Query Builder lists and created widgets that will be embedded in Business Central. It shows the status and last published date of each entry. This is also where you publish your customizations. Any custom fields from third-party extensions are automatically added as dependencies upon publish. Publishing allows your lists and widgets to be published to your sandbox environment in Business Central. Once published, entries are labeled as Published and display the last publish date.
- Production: Production connectors are used to get your daily production data from Business Central. While you cannot create any Query Builder lists in the production connector, you can create custom lists (joins, merges, etc.), which will be covered in its own section. The Publish tab, which is different from the sandbox, allows you to validate and publish your extension from sandbox to production. Publishing transfers your existing Popdock Customizations extension from your sandbox environment to your production environment, enabling the use of your queries or widgets with production data.
Custom Lists
Custom lists are available within your Business Central connectors just as they are with any other connector. However, Query Builder should be your primary method for customized lists. Popular custom lists for Business Central are Restriction and Summary lists. It is recommended to build custom lists within the production connector, as they are not included in the Popdock Customizations extension and will not be moved over from sandbox to production with publishing. This is because custom lists are strictly on the Popdock side and use the existing lists within the connector, unlike Query Builder, which uses tables.
Additionally, it is also recommended to create join lists you build through the Query Builder. Some lists in the Business Central connector, such as General Ledger Entries and Posted Sales Invoice Lines, can be quite large. Join lists created with these lists can be slow to load data due to the volume of data they need to process, which again is why Query Builder is recommended.
