Following the October ’18 update, Microsoft has launched CDS 2.0. In the previous blog post I was telling you about the door it opens and the new functionalities. My team and I have played with the new features and managed to integrate Dynamics 365 for Talent with Power BI and then bring the Power BI Dashboards back in Talent. Please be aware that this is possible if you have CDS 2.0, or you have created a new environment in Power Apps after the 1st of October 2018. Here are the steps:
PART 1
The first part is similar to what you can get at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/talent/provisioning-talent#create-an-lcs-project, but I followed other steps, which seem more logical to me
1. Got to Power Apps – https://admin.powerapps.com/environment and create a new environment:
2. Make sure the environment is CDS 2.0. All these environments have an ID automatically assigned, following the pattern “org…”. Also, you should find them in the Dynamics 365 Administration Center. Remember this Org ID because you will use it in the Power BI Integration.
You can click on Open to see the CDS 2.0 Administration and Customisation page. This page is identical to the Administration page of any Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement (former CRM) organisation.
Remember the organisation link; it should look like this: https://org7400000.crm4.dynamics.com. This link will be used on the Power BI Integration.
3. Go to LCS – https://lcs.dynamics.com/and create and deploy a new Talent Project
4. Click on the Talent app Management Tile and the (+) Add a new deployment. Select the newly created environment in Power Apps and confirm deployment. After confirmation, you will be able to access the new Talent environment, from LCS
PART 2 – Power BI Integration
1. Install and open Power BI Desktop. Make sure you have the correct license for Power BI Pro and it’s allocated to your user;
2. Click on Get Data, select More and choose Online Services and Common Data Service for Apps (Beta). Click on Connect.
3. Enter the Server URL (the link of your organisation, which should be as https://org7400000.crm4.dynamics.com – see PART 1, bullet 2) and click on OK.
4. After connecting to the Data Source, you will find the Dynamics 365 Talent data tables under Custom Entities. All the fields and the entities have the prefix cdm_. Make sure you tick the box in front of the table name (ex. cdm_worker) and then you click on Load.
5. Create your Power BI Charts and Dashboard, as you need and Publish them to Power BI online.
These Dashboards can be shared and using security roles, your customers will have access to right information.
In the next post, I will show you how to embed Power BI dashboards in Talent.