This connector is unusable for all but trivial data operations

[ElectricLlama]

This is with regards to the dynamics 365 / CDM connector.

Please add a note that this connector cannot be used to populate any entity that contains a "polymorphic" attribute. This means this connector cannot be used to load data into any non-parent type of entity, for example, contact

TBH it makes this connector unsuable.

Please add a note early in the documentation that lists this constraint and contains examples of the entities that can't be loaded. This will stop data engineers assuming that this is a viable data integration option.

https://feedback.azure.com/forums/270578-data-factory/suggestions/37250212-azure-data-factory-dynamics-365-connector-dataset

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62054515/loading-records-into-dynamics-365-through-adf

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Document Details

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• ID: 304d4c46-c0ac-05c9-15eb-d8b677ec5e90
• Version Independent ID: 36a79d36-2b72-2722-68e5-e167f9a2cd41
• Content: Copy data in Dynamics (Common Data Service) - Azure Data Factory
• Content Source: articles/data-factory/connector-dynamics-crm-office-365.md
• Service: data-factory
• GitHub Login: @linda33wj
• Microsoft Alias: jingwang

[ChiragMishra-MSFT]

@ElectricLlama Thanks for the feedback. We are currently investigating into the issue and will update you shortly.

[ChiragMishra-MSFT]

@linda33wj Do you think adding a note here makes sense? Can you please take a look at this?

[linda33wj]

@ElectricLlama Thanks for the feedback. We have added support for writing data into lookup field. Please refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/connector-dynamics-crm-office-365#data-type-mapping-for-dynamics section with pointer to guidance in details. Is it the capability you were looking for? Let know if any further issue.

[ElectricLlama]

Thanks for the doco update. I've tested and it does work. I'm curious as to how long this functionality existed before the doco was updated. Also, any reason you did not enable this on the existing (virtual ?) field? For example, contact has a field called parentcustomerid which we use to specify the parent account. But there is also a field called parentcustomeridtype. I spent a lot of time trying to use this to specify account or contact. It would've made more sense to incorporate it in this field.

[linda33wj]

@ElectricLlama good to know it works for you. The feature was released shortly before the doc is updated, and seems you posted this question at the same time as the doc went live. Sorry for the trouble earlier.
In your example, the parentcustomeridtype is kinda a virtual/sub field for parentcustomerid, ADF doesn't really write to such fields, nor retrieve such fields when importing schema. And Dynamics allow customer to create another field with such name, though rare. Thus we choose to use a pre-defined pattern to represent the entity reference relationship. Hope this makes sense.

#please-close