Virtual Entities

Virtual Entities is a feature in the Power Platform which makes it possible to display data from other systems in our model-driven apps without having the data stored in the Common Data Service.

The concept of Virtual Entities consists of a Virtual Entity, a Data Source and a Data Provider. Either you can use one of the two built-in data providers (an OData v4 provider or an Azure Cosmos DB provider), or you can develop a Custom Data Provider if your source requires that.

History

The July 2017 update for Dynamics 365 (online) introduced Virtual Entities. The upcoming Release Waves after that did not bring any news whithin this area, but during a session at eXtreme 365 Matt Barbour said "Virtual Entities are not dead". In the 2020 Release Wave 1 plan it was presented that Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations entities will be available in the Common Data Service as Virtual Entities. In July 2020 at Microsoft Inspire Vitural Entities was on the map again when it was included in Charles Lamanna's session Build agile business processes with the Power Platform – Focus on CDS, Power Apps, Power Automate + RPA and it was included in the Roadmap for Key Capabilities for 2020/2021.

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Microsoft Resources

Finance and Operations entities in Common Data Service as Virtual Entitites in the 2020 Release Wave 1 Plan

Get started with Virtual Entities Virtual Entities in the CDS section under Power Platform

Create and edit Virtual Entities Take a look at the On-Premises documentation to get a better understanding for the overall process

Virtual Entities Blog Post from Microsoft 8th of September 2017

Community Resources

Articles

Direct Query SQL Virtual Entities Article describing his SQL Virtual Entity Data Provider, by Michael Ochs

CDS Virtual Entities with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations by Aurélien Clere

Virtual Entities - Series of 4 Articles by Carina Claesson

Virtual Entities - Series of 3 Articles by Ivan Ficko

Creating a Custom Virtual Entity Data Provider by Jason Lattimer

Virtual Entities work-arounds by Ahmed Elsawalhy

Dynamics 365 working with the Virtual Entities by Alex Shlega

Videos

French HowTo #9 - Dynamics365 F&O CDS Virtual Entities in Frensh, by Aurélien Clere

Custom Data Provider Samples

SQL Virtual Entity Data Provider by Michael Ochs

Custom Data Provider for the SpaceX Rocket Launch API by Carina Claesson

D365 Custom Data Provider by Jason Lattimer