Synapse link for DATAVERSE – Finance and

Operations Apps- preview

Setup and Configuration Guide, Ver 4.1 (7-Apr-2023) – requires F&O PU

57 (10.0.33)

Change history

Version Date Change

1.xx Sept-22
2.1 1-Dec-22 Version published PDF to Teams channel
2.2 2-Dec-22 Added feedback and success criteria
Changed service IDs to be included
4.0 Added specific instructions for PU57
4.2 7-Apr-23

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 Overview
Using this preview feature, you can;

1. Enable F&O entities for Synapse Link (also see known limitations)
2. Choose F&O entities and save as Parquet/delta lake files in your own data lake
3. Query F&O Data entities with Synapse

NOTE: This is a preview for participants of preview yammer group. Do not share information
outside of the yammer group.

Pre-requisites
• Finance and Operations Cloud Hosted Environment (CHE) or Tier 2+ environment with
version update 10.0.33 (PU 57) (We Recommend using CHE environment)
• Finance and Operations environment is linked with Power Platform.
• Azure Subscription with owner access
o Storage account
o Synapse Analytics workspace
o Synapse Spark pool with version 3.1 or higher (For Delta Lake conversion)

Who is this preview for?

Customers use BYOD today for BI and Analytics workloads – BYOD materializes F&O entity data
in Azure SQL database. BYOD has many challenges, such as management overheads for export
jobs, performance challenges in the operational system and cost of running Azure SQL database.
Despite challenges, Customers who have built ETL, Datamart and Reporting solutions using
BYOD would expect this transition to be as easy and seamless as possible. Synapse Link with
F&O entity support provides a path for these customers to transition away from BYOD.

Can I choose F&O tables in Synapse Link?

This preview only let’s you choose F&O entities. We have plans to enable further F&O data
shapes in Synapse Link in the coming weeks.

Dynamics 365 Export to data lake feature (aka. Project Como) lets you export F&O tables with
incremental changes. Customer like the table export as it addresses many gaps that exist in the
Data entities such as the need to have a pro-developer to build/ modify entities. However, table
data is too granular. We observe that customers must de-normalize the data and build a simpler
data model before users can create reports. Once table data is available in the lake, customers
have the option of using Synapse tools to build these solutions.

This preview is for customers that are trying to move from BYOD with minimum effort. For
customers currently using Como to export tables, this preview provides an option to choose
F&O Entity shapes.

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 Success criteria for this feature
This feature is a success if we meet following criteria. We want your help in shaping this feature.

Criteria How we measure

Easy to setup & use Setup with a few clicks
F&O data readily available in Synapse (no integration required)
Transition from BYOD What is the effort to transition from BYOD
Entity coverage
Data staleness Data initialization thruput (full export)
Data staleness within 30mins
Running Cost Compared to what you spend on BYOD pipeline today
- Cost to materialize data in delta lake
- Cost of Synapse query
Query response times Query response times with Synapse query – especially when
you choose the “parquet” option

What is expected from you during the Preview?

We want to gather early feedback from customers on following topics – your feedback is critical
to our success. We will send you periodic surveys. If you have issues, pl. raise them immediately
via the yammer group.

1. Onboarding/setup experience
2. Transition experience/effort from BYOD
3. Data staleness in the lake
a. Time taken to initialize an Entity
b. Ongoing entity refresh times
2. Cost to materialize data in delta lake format
3. Synapse integration compatibility
4. Synapse serverless query performance especially when entities are saved into parquet
delta lake format

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 Known limitations
There are several known limitations in this preview. We have ongoing work items to remediate.
Known limitations (and fixes) are summarized below.

Issue Limitation/ known issue Fix/ workaround

1. We recommend using a D365 F&O Cloud hosted See pre-requisites here
environment (CHE) for limited preview. This preview is
not recommended for Sandbox or Production
environments.

2. You need to enable “Row version Change tracking” See instructions here
manually on all custom Entities and custom Tables
chosen for preview using F&O developer tools. You can enable Change tracking
on custom Entities using Power
platform admin center provided all
underlying tables are already
enabled for change tracking.

3. It is not possible to extend out of the box tables or Microsoft is enabling Row Version
entities to enable Row Version change tracking. Change Tracking for out of the box
tables starting from platform
releases PU56 and PU57.

4. Not all Entity patterns are supported for Row version See list here for Entity patterns not
Change Tracking. supported
- When you enable entities you may see a
runtime error
- When you enable the Change tracking property
on Entities, in developer tools, you will see
compiler errors indicating invalid patterns

5. Power platform virtual entity solution is not installed or Power platform solution is being
your current version is lower updated. See here
(Dynamics 365 ERP Virtual Entities solution versions
2.8.x.x required)

6. Enabling Virtual entities in advanced find is slow – takes We are working on a solution to
too long to enable all entities this problem applicable to Synapse
Link

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 How to enable the preview
Prepare environment
1. Deploy a new cloud hosted environment with 10.0.33 (PU 57) version and link with Power
Platform. While deploying the new CHE environment select Power Platform Integration
option. Enable the Microsoft Power Platform integration - Finance & Operations |
Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn
2. If you plan to use existing CHE environment or Tier 2 environment, make sure that Power
Platform Integration is completed on the LCS.
3. For existing Tier 2 environment power platform linking can be done from LCS directly.
4. For existing CHE environment, follow the steps to enable Power Platform Integration
Enable the Microsoft Power Platform integration - Finance & Operations | Dynamics 365 |
Microsoft Learn
5. The following image show how you can validate if the environment is linked with Power
Platform

NOTE: Dual-Write setup is not required for Synapse Link for DATAVERSE.

Add configurations in F&O environment.

Enable configuration key Enable SQL row version change tracking configuration key by turning
on maintenance mode Maintenance mode - Finance & Operations | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft
Learn

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 NOTE:

1. The configuration key to enable change tracking will change in future updates (before
GA of this feature)
2. enabling “Allow Row version change tracking” property on a table adds
sysRowVersionNumber field to tables. In the future this system field may change without
notice. You should not build a solution using this field.

Add feature flights to your F&O environment

If you are using a Cloud Hosted Environment (CHE), you need to enable following flights.
If you are using a Sandbox environment, no further action is required.

1. Enable flights in the F&O development environment – connect to database and run
below script to add flight code to SYSFLighting table
declare @flights varchar(max) = DMFDisableIsRowVersionChangeTrackingAllowedForEntityCheck'

insert into SYSFLIGHTING (FLIGHTNAME,ENABLED,FLIGHTSERVICEID)

select value, 1, 12719367 from string_split(@flights, ',') where value not in (select FlightName from
SYSFLIGHTING)

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 select * from SYSFLIGHTING where FLIGHTNAME in (select value from string_split(@flights, ','))

2. Restart the AOS

Enable F&O entities in PowerApps maker portal

1. Go to Maker portal
(https://make.powerapps.com/) , Select
Environment
Click Settings Icon and choose Advanced Settings

Select the filter icon

Select Available Finance and Operation Entities

A list of available Entities would appear on screen. You can use the filter fields and choose
Entities that begin with a specific name if required.

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 Choose the Entity required and select the Visible
property to true.

The Entity you have chosen will appear along with

the list of tables in the Power Apps maker portal.

Hint: you can try a few entities from the list

below first

MainAccountBiEntity, ExchangeRateBiEntity
InventTableBiEntity, InventTableBiEntity

See the list here complete list of Entities:

https://www.yammer.com/dynamicsaxfeedbackprograms/uploaded_files/164766080204
8

You need to enable change tracking for the F&O entities chosen the same way you enable for
Dataverse tables. (Choose the table from maker portal, choose > properties and select Track
changes.

NOTE: Track changes checkbox may be disabled if the chosen Entity does not pass validations.
See here for more details on this restriction.

If you chose a custom Entity, you need to enable the entity for change tracking by following
instructions here.

You are all set.

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 Choose F&O entities in Synapse Link

1. When F&O Entities are marked as Visible and Enabled Change tracking – they are
available to be added to Synapse Link for DATAVERSE
2. You can create a new Synapse Link or add F&O tables to an existing synapse link. Hint:
search entity with names beginning with erp prefix)
3. When enabling Entities, some F&O entities may fail. This is expected if these entities fail
validation rules. See advanced instructions for more details.

Save Entities in Parquet/Delta Lake format

1. Sign in to Power Apps maker portal (make.powerapps.com) and select your environment.
2. In your web browsers address bar, append ?athena.deltaLake=true to the end of the
URL web address. NOTE: this requirement will go way when the delta feature becomes
generally available.
3. You can create a new Synapse Link and choose the tables you want to export,
4. Optionally, select Advance and choose show advanced configuration settings. You can
choose the time interval (in minutes) for how often the incremental updates should be
captured.

Data lake and Synapse Workspace

1. Once table are added to Synapse Link – you will see Finance and Operations Entities
shows up in data lake

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 2. Metadata is automatically created on Synapse Workspace database and you can query it

Try this first

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 Advanced setup instructions
Prepare Custom entities for Row Version Change Tracking (Row version CT)
You need to enable “Row version change Tracking” for Entities to use them with Synapse Link.
To enable Row version change tracking on an entity, all underlying tables must be enabled with
Row version Change tracking.

Microsoft has enabled row version change tracking for most frequently used standard tables in
PU57 (10.0.33) and some Entities.

You need to enable Row version change tracking for custom tables and entities. You need to be
an F&O developer to perform this step.

See instructions here: Allow Row version change tracking for tables and data entities - Finance &
Operations | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

NOTE: enabling “Allow Row version change tracking” property on a table adds
sysRowVersionNumber field to tables. In the future this system field may change without notice.
You should not build a solution using this field.

Entities not supported for Change tracking

Following patterns present in Entities are not supported for Row version Change tracking at this
point in time. We currently don’t support these patterns since we are not able to incrementally
update Entities containing these patterns.

Allow Row version change tracking for tables and data entities - Finance & Operations |
Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

I don’t see “enable Change tracking in F&O virtual entities”

1. Note down the environment name and Environment URL from LCS.
2. If you have an existing environment, you need to validate w Login to Power Platform
admin center (microsoft.com) and select environment

3. Click on Dynamics 365 Apps, search Finance and Operations Virtual Entity Solution
and ensure solution is installed, and version is 2.8.0.x If version is lower, it should show
the update is available. Click and agree to term to update the solution to latest version.

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