Integration Accelerator — Advanced Usage

Advanced Usage

Who is this guide for? This guide is for users and administrators who are already comfortable with the basics of the Integration Accelerator and want to explore its more powerful features. You do not need to be a developer, but some topics here are more technical in nature.

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Overview

The Integration Accelerator is designed to grow with your needs. Once you have the basics running, there are many advanced features that can help you:

• Send data to Microsoft Fabric (the modern Microsoft analytics platform)
• Use real-time data monitoring for instant updates
• Set up multiple companies with the same configuration
• Control exactly which field changes trigger a data send
• Manage large data exports efficiently
• Use dependency rules between tables
• Work with inbound data from external systems
• Expose Business Central data as a dynamic API endpoint

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1. Sending Data to Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is Microsoft’s modern data analytics platform. The Integration Accelerator supports it natively alongside Azure Data Lake.

How to configure Microsoft Fabric:

1. Open the Activity Card for your Azure Data Lake activity (or create a new one).
2. In the Publish Data section, make sure Publish Data Type is set to Azure Data Lake.
3. In the Azure Data Lake section, find the Storage Type field and change it to Microsoft Fabric.
4. Two new fields will become available:
   • Workspace — enter the name of your Microsoft Fabric Workspace.
   • Lakehouse — enter the name of your Lakehouse within that Workspace.
5. Fill in the standard Azure credentials (Account Name, Client ID, Client Secret, Tenant ID) as you would for Azure Data Lake.
6. Click Synchronize Structure to Azure to set up the structure in Fabric.

💡 Note: The App Registration in Azure must have the correct permissions to access your Microsoft Fabric Workspace. Ask your Azure administrator to grant the necessary access.

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2. Real-Time Data Monitoring

By default, the Integration Accelerator sends data on a schedule (based on the Job Queue). However, you can enable real-time monitoring so that data is sent almost instantly when a change happens in Business Central.

Two ways to get near-real-time data:

Option A: Background Processing (per Activity)

1. Open the Activity Card.
2. In the Publish Data section, turn on Enable Record Monitor.
3. Set the Monitor Interval (in minutes) — this is how often the monitor checks for new changes.
4. The Monitor Running field will show green when the monitor is active.

⚠️ Important: Background Processing cannot be used together with Bundle Outbound Entries on the same table. Choose one or the other.

Option B: Real-Time Schedule (per Table)

1. Open the Activity Tables page for your activity.
2. For each table you want to monitor in real time, set the Schedule field to Real Time.
3. The system will create a scheduled task that fires immediately when a change is detected in that table.

💡 Tip: Real-time monitoring is ideal for critical data like sales orders or inventory. For less time-sensitive data (like master data), an interval schedule is usually sufficient and uses fewer system resources.

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3. Copying Setup to Multiple Companies

If your Business Central environment has multiple companies and you want the same integration running in all of them, you do not need to set it up from scratch each time.

How to copy an Activity setup to another company:

1. Open the Activity Card for the activity you want to copy.
2. Click Copy Setup to Company in the action bar.
3. A list of companies will appear. Select the company (or companies) you want to copy to.
4. Click OK.

The system will copy the Activity configuration, including all Tables and Fields, to the selected company.

💡 Note: Credentials (Client ID, Client Secret, Tenant ID) are not copied for security reasons. You will need to enter them separately in each company.

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4. Controlling Which Field Changes Trigger a Data Send

By default, any change to any field in a monitored table will trigger a data send. However, you can make this more precise using the Monitor Fields for Publishing setting.

How to set up field-level monitoring:

1. Open the Activity Tables page.
2. Find the table you want to configure.
3. Set the Monitor Fields for Publishing column to Specified Fields.
4. Now only changes to the fields you have added in the Fields list will trigger a data send.

This is useful when a table has many fields but you only care about a few — for example, you might only want to send data when a sales order’s Status or Amount changes, not when an internal comment is updated.

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5. Bundling Outbound Entries

When using the Job Queue to send data (not real-time), you can bundle multiple changes together into a single message. This reduces the number of API calls and can improve performance when many records change at once.

How to enable bundling:

1. Open the Activity Tables page.
2. Find the table you want to bundle.
3. Turn on the Bundle Outbound Entries toggle.

⚠️ Note: Bundling cannot be used together with Background Processing. If Background Processing is enabled on the Activity, the Bundle option will be disabled.

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6. Exporting All Records (Full Export)

Sometimes you need to send a complete snapshot of all data in a table — for example, when setting up a new integration or after a data correction. The Integration Accelerator supports this with a full export feature.

How to trigger a full export:

1. Open the Activity Tables page for your activity.
2. Select the table you want to export.
3. Click Export All Records in the action bar.

⚠️ Important for Azure Data Lake: When you run a full export, any existing files in the Azure folder for that table will be deleted first to ensure the data is consistent. Make sure you are ready for this before proceeding.

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7. Using Table Filters

You can limit which records are monitored and exported by applying a Table Filter. This is useful when you only want to send a subset of records — for example, only posted sales invoices, or only items from a specific category.

How to set a Table Filter:

1. Open the Activity Tables page.
2. Find the table you want to filter.
3. Click the Table Filter field — an assist-edit button (three dots) will appear.
4. Click the button to open the filter editor.
5. Set your filter conditions and click OK.

Only records that match the filter will be monitored and exported.

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8. Row Version Tracking

The Integration Accelerator uses a feature called Row Version tracking to detect changes efficiently. Instead of scanning the entire table every time, it remembers the last version it processed and only looks at newer records.

What you need to know:

• The Row Version Export Status column on the Activity Tables page shows the current state:

  • On Hold — the table is not active
  • Ready — the table is active and ready to export
  • In Progress — an export is currently running
  • Failed — the last export attempt failed

• The Last Sync. Row Version and Last Sync. Date Time fields show when data was last successfully exported.

• The Row Version Filter field lets you manually set a starting point for the export — useful if you want to re-export data from a specific point in time.

• The Remaining Records field shows how many records are still waiting to be exported during a large initial export.

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9. Setting Up a Dynamic API Endpoint (Request Data)

The Request Data activity type lets you expose Business Central data as a read-only API endpoint — without writing any code. External systems can call this endpoint to retrieve data directly from Business Central.

How to set it up:

1. Create or open an Activity with Activity Type = Request Data.
2. Add the tables and fields you want to expose (same as for Publish Data).
3. Set the Activity to Active.
4. The system will automatically create an API endpoint that external systems can call.

Settings specific to Request Data:

Field	What it means
Registration	Validates and prepares incoming requests before processing
Processing	Processes the request and returns the data to the caller
Error Handling	Choose whether to return errors to the caller or keep them internal

💡 Use case: This is ideal for replacing hardcoded API pages in Business Central. Instead of a developer creating a custom API page for every integration, you can configure it here dynamically — and it works with any table, including tables from other extensions.

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10. Receiving Data from External Systems (Save Request)

The Save Request activity type allows external systems to push data into Business Central. The Integration Accelerator receives the data, saves it, and returns a confirmation to the sender.

How it works:

1. An external system sends data to the Business Central API endpoint associated with the Save Request activity.
2. The Integration Accelerator saves the incoming data in the Inbound Entry log.
3. A developer can then write custom code to process the saved data and create records in Business Central.

💡 Note: The Save Request activity is a template — it receives and stores data, but processing the data requires custom development. This is the entry point for inbound integrations.

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11. Managing Data Export Language

When exporting data, field values that contain translated text (like descriptions or captions) will use the language of the user running the export by default. You can override this to always export in a specific language.

How to set the export language:

1. Open the Activity Card.
2. In the Publish Data section, find the Export Language field.
3. Click the lookup button to select a language from the list.
4. All exported text values will now use the selected language.

This is useful when your external system expects data in a specific language, regardless of which user triggered the export.

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12. Controlling Payload Storage

By default, the Integration Accelerator does not save a copy of the data payload (the actual data that was sent) in the Outbound Entry log. You can change this for troubleshooting purposes.

How to enable payload storage:

1. Open the Activity Card.
2. In the Publish Data section, find the Save Outbound Payload field.
3. Choose one of the options:
   • Never — do not save payloads (default, saves database space)
   • On Error — only save the payload when an entry fails (useful for debugging)
   • Always — save every payload (useful for auditing, but increases database size)

⚠️ Warning: Saving payloads always will increase the size of your database significantly if you have high data volumes. Use this setting carefully.

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13. Setting Up Table Dependencies

Sometimes the order in which tables are exported matters. For example, you might need to make sure that Customer records are exported before Sales Order records, because the receiving system needs the customer to exist first.

You can define dependency rules between tables to control the export order.

How to set up a dependency:

1. Open the Activity Tables page.
2. Select the table that should wait for another table to finish first.
3. Click Fields to open the fields for that table.
4. Click Dependency Rules in the action bar.
5. Add the table that must be exported first as a prerequisite.

The system will ensure that the prerequisite table’s export is complete before starting the dependent table’s export.

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14. Viewing Files on Azure

For Azure Data Lake activities, you can browse the files that have been uploaded to Azure directly from Business Central.

How to view Azure files:

1. Open the Activity Tables page.
2. Select a table.
3. Click List Files on Azure Delta Folder in the action bar.
4. A list of files in the Azure folder for that table will appear.
5. From this list, you can also download or delete individual files.

This is useful for verifying that data has been uploaded correctly and for cleaning up old files.

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15. Including Field and Table Numbers in Azure Data

When exporting to Azure Data Lake, field names in the exported data are based on the Field TAG Name you configured. Optionally, you can also include the field number and table number in the field name — this can help when the receiving system needs to identify fields by their Business Central number.

How to enable this:

1. Open the Activity Card.
2. In the Azure Data Lake section, turn on Azure Include Entity No..

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16. Allowing External Systems to Trigger a Publish

Normally, data is published automatically when changes are detected. However, you can also allow an external system to trigger a publish on demand via the API.

How to enable this:

1. Open the Activity Card.
2. In the Publish Data section, turn on Allow Start Publish from API.

When this is enabled, an external system can call the Business Central API to start a publish for this activity immediately, without waiting for the next scheduled job run.

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Advanced Configuration Summary

Feature	Where to find it	Use case
Microsoft Fabric	Activity Card → Azure Data Lake tab	Send data to Fabric Lakehouse
Real-time monitoring	Activity Card → Publish Data tab	Instant data updates
Copy to company	Activity Card → Action bar	Multi-company setup
Field-level triggers	Activity Tables → Monitor Fields	Reduce unnecessary data sends
Bundle entries	Activity Tables → Bundle Outbound Entries	Optimise high-volume exports
Full export	Activity Tables → Export All Records	Initial load or data reset
Table filters	Activity Tables → Table Filter	Export only relevant records
Row version tracking	Activity Tables → Row Version fields	Efficient change detection
Dynamic API endpoint	Activity Type = Request Data	Replace hardcoded API pages
Inbound data	Activity Type = Save Request	Receive data from external systems
Export language	Activity Card → Export Language	Consistent language in exports
Payload storage	Activity Card → Save Outbound Payload	Debugging and auditing
Table dependencies	Fields → Dependency Rules	Control export order
Browse Azure files	Activity Tables → List Files on Azure	Verify and manage uploaded files
Include entity numbers	Activity Card → Azure Include Entity No.	Field identification in Azure
API-triggered publish	Activity Card → Allow Start Publish from API	On-demand data push

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