Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 was released in May, and for the last few months we have been going over the dozens of new features it delivers, first as introductions, and now in more detail. Today we are going to take a closer look at another new feature that we have previously introduced, the new OData service that you can deploy to democratize your Microsoft Dynamics GP data. The OData service enables you to manage access to you Microsoft Dynamics GP data for GP users so that they can build rich interactive reports in Power BI and Excel.
To use it, you will of course first have to deploy the OData service. The service will create the URL endpoint that you will connect to when you want to connect to OData to build reports, and it will also handle authentication of users to make sure that they actually have access to the data they are trying to access.
To deploy it, launch the setup.exe for Microsoft Dynamics GP, then select the GP OData Service menu option. Enter the server where Microsoft Dynamics GP is hosted, specify the port that you want to communicate on and the certificate that you want to use. You’ll also specify a service account to run the service. That’s all there is to deploying the OData service.
Now you will be able to deploy refreshable reports, whether on the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment. You can also have refreshable dashboards, and it will not matter where you host your refreshable reports and dashboards.
