Installation

1. Overview

This document provides an outline for installing the Centrify 360 solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The installation process involves setting up the source system extension, the ETL orchestrator, the target database, and the reporting tool. Follow the standard structure below, ensuring all prerequisites are met before proceeding.

The process is designed to be incremental and modular, allowing for testing at each stage.

2. Prerequisites

Before beginning the installation, ensure the following requirements are satisfied:

2.1. System Requirements

  • Operating System: Windows 10/11, Windows Server 2016/2019/2022 (for orchestrator and database setup).

  • Hardware: Recommended 8 GB RAM, and 50 GB free disk space (scales with data volume).

  • Network Access: Stable internet connection for license validation.

2.2. Software Dependencies

  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: Active subscription (SaaS or on-premises version 19(2021 Release Wave 2) or later).

  • Power BI: Desktop version (free) or Pro/Premium for sharing reports.

  • Development Tools: Windows Powershell for publishing the extension and Power BI Reports to Power BI Online (optional)

2.3. Accounts and Permissions

  • Business Central Admin Access: To install and configure the extension.

  • Cloud Accounts: Power BI service account for publishing (optional)

2.4. Knowledge Prerequisites

  • Basic understanding of ETL processes, SQL, and star schema modeling.

  • Familiarity with Business Central extensions.

  • Basic Power BI Knowledge.

3. Required Artifacts

Gather the following files and resources before installation:

  • Business Central Extension: The .app file for publishing the extension. The extension comes with 2 versions, one for on-premise BC deployments, and one for cloud SaaS BC deployments.

  • Centrify 360 Installer: The .exe installer for Centrify 360 to install on a server (on-premise, Azure VM, VPS, etc.)

  • Power BI Reports: Power BI .zip file containing the standard reports provided by Centrify 360.

  • Configuration Packages: Excel Configuration package to be loaded into Business Central After the extension is published. There is a standard configuration package for the 6 standard modules (Sales, Purchases, Payables, Receivables, Inventory, Finance) and an additional configuration file per additional module (Retail, Fixed Assets, …​)

These artifacts can be downloaded from Centrify 360 website (https://centrify360.com)

4. Installation Steps

4.1. Step 1: Install Business Central Extension

This step can be completed by following the official Microsoft guide for publishing extensions:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/developer/devenv-how-publish-and-install-an-extension-v2

After completing the publish step, you should be able to see the following pages in business central for configuration:

Extension Installation Validation

4.2. Step 2: Fetch Companies' Fingerprints & Get a License

The Software license is coupled to a business central company fingerprint.
The fingerprint should be extracted from all companies where BI is required.
To do so, navigate to Centrify 360 Company Setup in each company, and copy the shown fingerprint and submit it to us for License Generation:

Company Fingerprint

Once we receive the fingerprints, a license.lic file will be provided to you for the rest of the steps.

4.3. Step 3: Install Centrify 360

The next step is to install Centrify 360 Orchestrator & Datalake on a target server (Can be an Cloud VM, local server, …​)

Open Centrify360Setup.exe on the target deployment host and follow the below steps:

4.3.1. Postgres Configuration:

Installer - Postgres

Choose a username and strong password for Postgres super-admin user.
Make sure to include special characters, lowercase, uppercase, and numbers in your password.

4.3.2. Orchestrator Configuration:

Installer - Orchestrator

  • Orchestrator Internal HTTP Port: The HTTP port used internally by the orchestrator to receive data and perform transformations

  • Orchestrator External HTTP Port: The HTTP port used externally by the orchestrator to receive data and perform transformations

  • Orchestrator External HTTPS Port: The HTTPS port used externally by the orchestrator to receive data and perform transformations

  • Orchestrator Authentication Client ID: Theis is an auto-generated GUIDs that will be used later for authentication between BC and the orchestrator (Keep as is)

  • Orchestrator Authentication Client Secret: Theis is an auto-generated GUIDs that will be used later for authentication between BC and the orchestrator (Keep as is)

  • Orchestrator Max Cache Size: This is an advanced property related to caching logic inside the orchestrator (keep as default)

  • Orchestrator Memory: This should be sized according to the volume of the data (4 is the default, increase for larger data)

All Selected ports, alongside the default PostgreSQL port (5432) have to be available (not in use) on the deployment server

4.3.3. License Configuration:

Installer - License

Choose the license.lic file that was obtained from Centrify 360 Team.

This step is crucial and the file has to be a valid license, or else the installation will fail

4.3.4. HTTPS Configuration:

Installer - HTTPS

Please refer to HTTPS Configuration for more information
If no certificate and key is provided, the service will use HTTP for communication.

4.3.5. Installation Finalization:

Once the installation is finalized, navigate to Services on windows, you should be able to see the related services up and running as shown in the screenshot below:

Installation Validation

If the deployment server is different than BC Server (or using BC SaaS), the orchestrator external port (HTTP or HTTPS) should be opened and available for external calls
Check your IT team for more information.

5. Next Steps

Please refer to Basic Configuration for the next steps