Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a suite of business applications designed to help organizations manage various aspects of their operations, including sales, marketing, customer service, finance, and supply chain management. Dynamics can be deployed as a SaaS in Azure. Supporting Dynamics is Microsoft Dataverse, a cloud-based data storage and management platform. Dataverse acts as a secure and scalable foundation, allowing Dynamics 365 applications and other tools like Power Apps and Power Automate to store, manage, and integrate data seamlessly. It provides a unified data model, robust security features, and rich business logic capabilities, enabling businesses to build custom solutions, automate workflows, and gain valuable insights from their data.
There are different retrieval methods for Dynamics CRM systems from the underlying data storage, called the Dataverse.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides multiple ways to retrieve data from the Dataverse (Common Data Service). The most common methods include Query Expression, LINQ, FetchXML, Retrieval using Web API (OData). Choosing the right approach depends on performance, complexity, and intended use case.
- Use Query Expression for plugins & workflows.
- Use LINQ for clean, readable C# code but avoid for large datasets.
- Use FetchXML for advanced reporting & aggregations.
- Use OData for external API integrations & client-side applications.
- Use Retrieve (Org Service) for Fetching a single record