Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations holds your most valuable business data. Getting it into Power BI fast, reliably and without slowing down production is a common challenge. Here are the main options and when we use each.
Option 1: Azure Synapse Link / Microsoft Fabric link
The modern, Microsoft-recommended approach. F&O tables are continuously exported to a data lake (or directly into Microsoft Fabric) in near real time.
Best for: most new reporting projects, large data volumes, and combining ERP data with other sources.
Watch out for: you work with raw tables, so you need a semantic layer (views or a data model) that translates F&O tables into business-friendly facts and dimensions.
Option 2: BYOD (Bring Your Own Database)
Data entities are exported to an Azure SQL database on a schedule.
Best for: existing solutions that already depend on it.
Watch out for: Microsoft is steering customers toward Synapse Link / Fabric; new projects should generally start there.
Option 3: Embedded Power BI workspaces
D365 F&O includes embedded analytical workspaces, and you can embed your own Power BI reports directly into F&O forms.
Best for: operational reports that users need inside the ERP while they work.
Option 4: OData direct query
Power BI can connect directly to F&O OData endpoints.
Best for: small, ad-hoc datasets only. It doesn’t scale and can affect system performance.
Our recommended architecture
- Export F&O data with Synapse Link to Fabric / Data Lake
- Build a curated star-schema model (finance, sales, inventory, procurement)
- Publish certified Power BI semantic models with row-level security by legal entity or department
- Embed key reports back into D365 workspaces
The result is one version of the truth across finance and operations, refreshed throughout the day.
Learn more about our Power Platform & Power BI services or talk to us about your reporting needs.