Dataverse

The Dataverse connector lets you perform insert, delete, update, and read operations on Custom Tables.

Before you begin

Before using the Dataverse connector, do the following tasks:

• In your Google Cloud project:
  • Ensure that network connectivity is set up. For information about network patterns, see Network connectivity.
  • Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
  • Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
    • roles/secretmanager.viewer
    • roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor

    A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.

  • Enable the following services:
    • secretmanager.googleapis.com (Secret Manager API)
    • connectors.googleapis.com (Connectors API)

    To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.

  If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.

Configure the connector

Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:

1. In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Go to the Connections page

2. Click + CREATE NEW to open the Create Connection page.
3. In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
   1. Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.

      For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.

   2. Click NEXT.
4. In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
   1. Connector: Select Dataverse from the drop down list of available Connectors.
   2. Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
   3. In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.

      Connection names must meet the following criteria:

      • Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
      • Letters must be lower-case.
      • Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
      • Connection names cannot exceed 49 characters.
   4. Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
   5. Optionally, enable Cloud logging, and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to Error.
   6. Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
   7. Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
      • Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
      • Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.

      A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.

   Note: You can customize the connection node values only if you are a Pay-as-you-go customer.
   8. Azure Tenant: The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. If not specified, your default tentant will be used.
   9. Organization URL: The URL to your Microsoft Dataverse data. For instance, https://abc123.crm.dynamics.com/.
   10. Tenant: The Microsoft tenant being used to access data. If not specified, your default tenant is used.
   11. Optionally, in the API version field, specify the API version to use. If a new version of the API is released, you can specify that version in this field.
   12. Optionally, to enable the provider to use display names for operations, select Use Display Names.
   13. Schema: Select the schema to use.
   14. Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
   15. In the SSL Configuration section, select a trust model:
       • Public: Public certificates picked from the default trust store.
       • Private: Self-signed certificates or certificates issued by private certificate authorities
       • Insecure Connection: Trust all certificates. We recommend using either a public or private trust model.
5. In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details. To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.

6. Click Next.
7. Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
8. Click Create.

Configure authentication

Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.

• Client ID: The client ID used for requesting access tokens.
• Scope: A comma-separated list of desired scopes.
• Client secret: The client secret used for requesting access tokens.
• Authorization URL: Authorization URL generated when creating client.

System limitations

The Dataverse connector can process 25 transactions per second, per node, and throttles any transactions beyond this limit. By default, Integration Connectors allocates 2 nodes (for better availability) for a connection.

For information on the limits applicable to Integration Connectors, see Limits.

Note: The number of Integration Connectors nodes will autoscale dynamically based on your usage. However, if you want to reserve capacity for large volumes without waiting for autoscaling, you can adjust the minimum node value for a connection. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection. Conversely, fewer nodes are required if a connection processes fewer transactions. To configure the node values, do the following:

• If you are a pay-as-you-go customer, configure the minimum and maximum node value in the edit connection page.
• If you are a subscription based customer, contact support.

The maximum transactions that a node can handle depends on various factors. So, before adjusting the minimum nodes for better throughput, it is recommended you check if your backend systems are set up optimally to handle the required traffic.

Entities, operations, and actions

All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.

Note: You can view the entities, operations, and actions of a connector in the Connectors task.

• Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector, queues are the entities.

  However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the Entities list will be empty.

• Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform any of the following operations on an entity:
  • List
  • Get
  • Create
  • Update
  • Delete

  Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the Operations list.

• Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and vary from connector to connector. Normally, an action will have some input parameters, and an output parameter. However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the Actions list will be empty.

Note: All entities and actions will have a schema associated with them. For example, an action schema will have the parameter details such as; the parameter names, and its corresponding data type. The schema (metadata) for entities and actions is fetched by the connection at runtime from your backend. If there are any updates to the schema, such updates won't be automatically reflected in your existing connections; you must manually refresh the schema. To refresh the schema for a connection, open the Connection details page of the connection, and then click Refresh connection schema.

Actions

The Dataverse connector provides actions such as ListAssociations and ListNavigationProperties. To understand how to configure the actions, see Action examples.

Action examples

This section describes how to perform some of the actions in this connector.

Example - ListAssociations

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Actions.
2. Select the ListAssociations action, and then click Done.
3. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

    {
     FromId:"etywe325632io100",
     FromTable:"Customers",
     "NavigationProperty":"asyncoperations"
     }
   

Entity operation examples

Example - List all the Custom Table Records

This example lists all the Records in the User defined Table.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Custome Table Name from the Entity list.
3. Select the LIST operation, and then click Done.

Example - Get User based on Id

This example gets the User having newTableId as 568ea947-e03d-ef11-8409-7c1e5217e912 from the Users entity.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Custom Table from the Entity list.
3. Select the GET operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click entityId and then enter 568ea947-e03d-ef11-8409-7c1e5217e912 in the Default Value field.

   Here, newTableId is the primary key value of the Custom Table entity.

5. Click Done.

Use terraform to create connections

You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.

When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
database	STRING	False	The name of the SAP HANA database.
browsable_schemas	STRING	False	This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC.
include_system_objects	BOOLEAN	False	Set IncludeSystemObjects to True to fetch Hana System schema and tables.
include_table_types	BOOLEAN	False	If set to true, the provider will report the types of individual tables and views.
session_variables	STRING	False	A comma-separated list of session variables to set on the current connection.
enable_logging	ENUM	False	Enables verbosity for logging during a connection by selecting a level between 1 (least verbose) and 5 (most verbose). This feature can aid in troubleshooting error messages or other unexpected behavior. However, please be aware that this option will log all communication details, including requests, responses, and SSL certificates, between the connector and backend. Therefore, it is not advisable to utilize this function in a live production environment. Supported values are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Use the Dataverse connection in an integration

After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.

• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.

What's next

• Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
• Understand how to monitor connector usage.
• Understand how to view connector logs.