Analyze Dataverse tables from Microsoft Fabric
We are excited to announce we’ve made it easier than ever for Dynamics 365 and Power Apps customers to extend their insights into Fabric. In November 2023 we announced the ability to Link to Fabric from the Power Platform Maker Portal. This allows makers to easily analyze their data in Fabric through a single action in the maker portal.
Now, we’ve extended this capability from the Fabric side. When creating a shortcut within Fabric, you will now see an option for Dataverse. When you choose this shortcut type and specify your Dataverse environment details, you can quickly see and work with the tables from that environment.
Shortcuts in Microsoft OneLake allow authorized users to connect directly to their existing data. You no longer need to copy data from a source system to an analytical engine. Instead, you simply create a shortcut and immediately start analyzing your data in Fabric.
From Fabric, you can also connect to multiple Dataverse environments. This unlocks some historically challenging analytical scenarios. Customers implement separate Dataverse instances for logical businesses reasons such as for separate application customizations, contact databases, product lines, or departments. While that makes things easier for the business application end users it can make it challenging for executives who need to see data across the whole business. With this new feature, OneLake can virtualize data across Dataverse environments to provide a comprehensive view of data for analytics and reporting.
In addition to being able to access core Dataverse entities through shortcuts, you can also access ready-made insights and rich datasets in Dynamics 365 apps. Why build datasets from the ground-up when you can use and extend simplified data models built into apps like Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys? Starting in March, D365 Customer Insights – Journeys data will be available through Dataverse shortcuts in Fabric. This allows you to gain a complete understanding of your campaigns, lead management, market performance, customer engagement, and ultimately enabling you to identify new opportunities.
Let’s take a look at how to use Dataverse shortcuts in Fabric.
Prerequisites:
- A Power Bi premium license or Fabric Capacity
- If you don’t have Power BI premium license or Fabric capacity, you can sign up for a Free Fabric trial capacity. More information: Fabric (preview) trial
- System administrator privileges for your Dataverse environment.
- Enable Link to Fabric from the Dataverse environment.
Create a Dataverse shortcut in Fabric:
- Start by opening Fabric fabric.microsoft.com
- Create or open a Workspace.
- Create or open a Lakehouse.
- From the Lakehouse choose “Get data” and select “New shortcut”
- Select Dataverse from the shortcut source types.
- Supply your Dataverse environment URL (Example: orgname.crm.dynamic.com) and the credentials that you want to access the environment with. Note, Dataverse shortcuts utilize a delegated authorization model. All data access through the shortcut will utilize this credential. This credential must have the System Administration permission in the Dataverse environment. As you are a system administrator to the Dataverse environment, you will see all the data from your environment. You should secure access to this workspace before sharing this data with your users.
- Choose the table(s) that you want to create a shortcut to. Each table will be its own shortcut in the Lakehouse. If you’re not seeing all your tables, you may need to configure your Dataverse environment. From the Power Platform Makers portal, use “Link to Microsoft Fabric” to update the available tables.
- With your tables now available in your Lakehouse you can now start analyzing your data with Fabric. Use Dataverse shortcuts with Spark Notebooks, the SQL endpoint and Power BI reports.
From your Lakehouse you can open the SQL endpoint and start writing queries against your data. 
Choose the Data tab and select New report. Use Power BI to create a new report from your data or have CoPilot help you get started.
We are thrilled to release this new Dataverse shortcut to empower businesses around the world to achieve more with Fabric and Microsoft Business Applications.
Join us at the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference on March 25th and see this integration live at the workshop: Unleash Dynamics 365 Value with Microsoft Fabric – Microsoft Fabric Community Conference (fabricconf.com)
