Integrate Live Dynamics CRM Data into Amazon SageMaker Canvas with RDS

Amazon SageMaker Canvas is a no-code machine learning platform that lets you generate predictions, prepare data, and build models without writing code. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Dynamics CRM data for building custom machine-learning models, predicting customer churn, generating texts, building chatbots, and more. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Amazon SageMaker Canvas using the RDS connector and integrate live Dynamics CRM data into your ML model deployments.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Dynamics CRM, allowing you to easily integrate with live Dynamics CRM data in Amazon SageMaker Canvas — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Amazon SageMaker Canvas and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Dynamics CRM, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Dynamics CRM data.

Getting Started

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Configure Dynamics CRM Connectivity for Amazon SageMaker Canvas

Connectivity to Dynamics CRM from Amazon SageMaker Canvas is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Dynamics CRM data from Amazon SageMaker Canvas, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics CRM connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Dynamics CRM" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics CRM.

   The connection string options meet the authentication and connection requirements of different Dynamics CRM instances. To connect to your instance, set the User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, to valid Dynamics CRM user credentials and set the Url to a valid Dynamics CRM server organization root. Additionally, set the CRMVersion property to 'CRM2011+' or 'CRMOnline'. IFD configurations are supported as well; set InternetFacingDeployment to true.

   Additionally, you can provide the security token service (STS) or AD FS endpoint in the STSURL property. This value can be retrieved with the GetSTSUrl stored procedure. Office 365 users can connect to the default STS URL by simply setting CRMVersion.

   
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics CRM Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Dynamics CRM data from Amazon SageMaker Canvas.

Connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Amazon SageMaker Canvas

With the connection in CData Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to integrate live Dynamics CRM data into Amazon SageMaker Canvas using its RDS connector.

1. Select a domain and user profile in Amazon SageMaker Canvas and click on "Open Canvas".
2. Once the Canvas application opens, navigate to the left panel, and select "My models".
3. Click on "Create new model" in the My models screen.
4. Specify a Model name in Create new model window and select a Problem type. Click on "Create".
5. Once the model version gets created, click on "Create dataset" in the Select dataset tab.
6. In the Create a tabular dataset window, add a "Dataset name" and click on "Create".
7. Click on the "Data Source" drop-down and search for or navigate to the RDS connector and click on " Add Connection".
8. In the Add a new RDS connection window, set the following properties:
   
   
   • Connection Name: a relevant connection name
   • Set Engine type to sqlserver-web
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Address as tds.cdata.com
   • Set Username to a Connect Cloud user (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   • Set Database name the Dynamics CRM connection (e.g., DynamicsCRM1)
9. Click on "Create connection".

Integrating Dynamics CRM Data into Amazon SageMaker Canvas

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured in the RDS, you are ready to integrate live Dynamics CRM data into your Amazon SageMaker Canvas dataset.

1. In the tabular dataset created in RDS with Dynamics CRM data, search for the Dynamics CRM connection configured on Connect Cloud in the search bar or from the list of connections.
2. Select the table of your choice from Dynamics CRM, drag and drop it into the canvas on the right.
3. You can create workflows by joining any number of tables from the Dynamics CRM connection (as shown below). Click on "Create dataset".
4. Once the dataset is created, click on "Select dataset" to build your model.
5. Perform analysis, generate prediction, and deploy the model.

At this point, you have access to live Dynamics CRM data in Amazon SageMaker that you can utilize to build custom ML models to generate predictive business insights and grow your organization.

SQL Access to Dynamics CRM Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Dynamics CRM data from Amazon SageMaker Canvas. You can create more connections, datasets, and predictive models to drive business — all without replicating Dynamics CRM data.

To get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, see the CData Connect Cloud.