Innofactor Blog

Microsoft Data Export Service was discontinued – Now what?

Written by Jorma Erkkilä | 13.12.2022

Microsoft’s Data Export Service has been discontinued, forcing many organizations to survey other data architecture solutions. However, an alternative solution is available, offering a near real-time view of Microsoft Dataverse.

The Data Export Service (DES) is an extension to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 business platform that allows users to replicate Dynamics CRM data to the Azure SQL database. DES synchronizes all the Dynamics 365 data, as well as delta changes, when changes are made to the Dynamics 365 system.

At the end of 2021, Microsoft announced that the DES service would only be available until the end of November 2022. According to the company, DES is a simple application that only imports data into a database without offering any more extensive analytic functionality.

Any organization using a reporting solution based on Dynamics CRM, urgently needs to build a new architecture. What to do if the organization has used DES for reporting CRM data with BI tools, for example?

Innofactor DataSight – an analytics and reporting solution using Dynamics 365 data

Innofactor DataSight uses Microsoft’s new Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse service, which replaces Data Export Service. Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse offers a near real-time view of Microsoft Dataverse. Dataverse is a data structure and application environment where users can dynamically store information in a scalable and secure environment. Dataverse also enables large-scale low-code/no-code development for a wide range of applications quickly and cost-effectively.

In the DataSight solution, data are imported into a data pool where they can be analyzed and processed with advanced analytics capabilities. The solution also accommodates machine learning and AI solutions. Data can – and should – also be imported into the data pool from sources other than Dynamics CRM.

Innofactor DataSight currently uses more than 100 data sources.

With Innofactor DataSight, you can quickly implement Power BI reporting based on Dynamics 365 CRM or ERP data. Near real-time data visibility saves hours and days of working time in reporting and analytics. The modern solution architecture, based on Microsoft Azure, helps information management ensure the scalability, data security, and cost-effective deployment of the solution.

Especially sales need real-time data on leads, projects, and sales, for example. In turn, marketing staff needs analytical information about matters such as the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns – for example, information about the number and type of leads that result in deals. DataSight offers a solution to all these challenges.

In addition, the DataSight solution can be deployed very quickly, and it does not require major platform customization by organizations using Microsoft’s Dynamics cloud services. Innofactor has several years of experience in working with data on the Dynamics platform. The first version of DataSight was deployed for internal use back in 2018.


Innofactor DataSight may be a suitable data architecture solution for your organization if your current solution is built on the discontinued Data Export Service. Learn more about DataSight on our website or book a meeting with one of our specialists!