Dynamics 365 Application Development

Integrating external data using virtual entity

With the July 2017 update in Dynamics 365, we can now create a virtual type of custom entity. The name virtual applies because the data for the entity is not saved inside Dynamics 365. The virtual entity on runtime, that is when accessed, gets its data from the data source provider configured for it. Currently, it only supports the OData V4 data provider. With an earlier version of Dynamics 365, before virtual entity, if we had to fetch or retrieve data from external data sources, we had to write custom code for that. Now, once we have the OData service ready and exposed, it becomes more of a configuration thing inside Dynamics 365, that the system administrator or customizer can take care of, ...