Integrate and Manage Data Solutions
Data entities and the Data Management Framework
A data entity is a business-oriented, de-normalised view over one or more tables used for import, export, OData and integration. It must be public to be exposed and enabled for data management to appear in the Data management workspace. A composite entity groups a header and its lines under one root entity so a document imports atomically.
The framework runs projects: choose a source format (Excel, CSV, XML, package), map to entities, execute, then inspect the staging table for errors. Processing groups parallelise large jobs, recurring integrations poll a file location on a schedule, and change tracking enables incremental exports.
Real-time options
OData exposes entities at the data endpoint for synchronous CRUD. Custom service classes with a service group expose SOAP or JSON operations. Business events push a payload to Azure Service Bus, Event Grid or an HTTPS endpoint; they are asynchronous and not guaranteed to be ordered. Dual-write keeps Dataverse and Finance and Operations in near-real-time sync through table maps.
Trap: forgetting to enable change tracking before designing an incremental export, and assuming a set-based DMF import runs all X++ business logic, which it deliberately bypasses in part for performance. Rule of thumb: bulk and asynchronous, use DMF; one record now, use OData or a custom service; notify a subscriber, use a business event.