What is Data entities?
Table of Content:
What is Data entities?
In the earlier version of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, there are multiple options such as DIXF, Excel Add-ins, and AIF for data management. Data entities are introduced as a part of data management to be used as a layer of abstraction to easily understand by using business concepts.
The concept of data entities combines those different concepts into one. You can reuse Data entities for an Excel Add-ins, Integration, or import/export. The following table shows core scenarios of Data management:
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Data Migration |
Migrate reference, master, and document data from legacy or external systems. |
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Setup and copy configuration |
Copy configuration between company/environments. Configure processes or modules using the Lifecycle Services (LCS) environment. |
|
Integration |
Real-time service based integration. Asynchronous integration. |
Common Terminology in Data Management
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Data project |
A project that contains configured data entities, which include mapping and default processing options. |
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Data job |
A job that contains an execution instance of the data project, uploaded files, schedule (recurrence), and processing options. |
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Job history |
Histories of source to staging and staging to target. |
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Data package |
A single compressed file that contains a data project manifest and/or data files. This is generated from a data job and used for import or export of multiple files with the manifest. |
Data management uses data entities under the hood for an abstract layer for business logic implementation. Data is inserted in staging tables using SSIS, which is then validated and transformed to map to the target entity.
