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The Azure building blocks and what each one does
Logic Apps
Visual workflows that call Dynamics 365, Business Central, SFTP servers, databases and web APIs. The Standard plan runs in a single-tenant host and can reach systems inside your own network.
Service Bus
Queues and topics that sit between systems. If Business Central is being updated or an ecommerce platform is slow, messages wait in the queue instead of being lost.
API Management
A controlled front door for partners who need your data: keys, rate limits, logging and versions, without exposing your ERP directly to the internet.
Event Grid
Pushes events, such as a posted invoice or a file landing in storage, to the services that care about them, so nothing has to poll every few minutes.
Azure Functions
Small pieces of code for transformations that are awkward in a workflow designer, such as parsing a fixed-width bank file or an EDI document.
Monitor and Application Insights
Alerts when a run fails, dashboards of throughput and a searchable history of every message. Business Central can also send its own telemetry to Application Insights.
How each Dynamics 365 product exposes its data
Business Central offers standard and custom API pages over OData v4 with OAuth sign-in through Microsoft Entra ID, plus webhooks that notify a subscriber when records change. Microsoft throttles API calls per environment, so bulk loads have to be batched and paced rather than fired all at once.
Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management expose data entities through OData and the Data Management Framework for large file-based imports and exports. Business events can be delivered to Service Bus, Event Grid, Event Hubs or an HTTPS endpoint, which suits event-driven designs well.
Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service and Field Service sit on Dataverse, which has its Web API, plug-ins and a built-in way to post messages to Azure Service Bus. That makes Service Bus a natural hub when CRM and ERP both need to hear about the same customer or order.
Designing an integration that finance can trust
- 1
Inventory every interface
Each existing and planned feed is listed with its direction, volume, timing, owner and what happens today when it fails. This list alone often reveals feeds nobody remembers building.
- 2
Choose the lightest tool per feed
A nightly price file may need only a Logic App; a high-volume order stream needs a queue, idempotent processing and a dead-letter process. Not every feed deserves the full stack.
- 3
Define the contract
Field mappings, identifiers, error codes and retry rules are written down and signed off by both system owners, so disagreements surface on paper rather than in production.
- 4
Build with failure in mind
Every message carries a correlation ID, duplicates are detected, and failed messages land somewhere a person can see, fix and resubmit them.
- 5
Reconcile, then monitor
Counts and totals are compared between systems after test runs and after go-live, and alerts go to a named team, not a shared mailbox nobody reads.
Signs you have outgrown point-to-point integration
- ✓Orders or invoices occasionally go missing and are found only at month-end
- ✓An integration runs on a server under someone's desk or as a scheduled script on one PC
- ✓Nobody can say how many messages failed last week or why
- ✓Each new sales channel or trading partner means another custom connection into the ERP
- ✓Partners ask for API access and the only option is sharing an ERP account
Azure integration questions from IT and finance
Why not do everything in Power Automate?
Power Automate is excellent for team-level automation and approvals. For high-volume or business-critical feeds, Logic Apps Standard adds private networking, deployment through pipelines and more control over hosting and scale. The two share the same connector model, so a flow can move to Logic Apps when it outgrows its first home.
Do we need our own Azure subscription?
Yes. Integration resources should run in a subscription your company owns, so you keep control of the data, the access and the bill. We work inside it with access you grant and can remove, and everything we deploy is described in templates kept in your repository.
What does Azure cost to run for this?
Azure bills by consumption and plan, and Microsoft publishes a pricing calculator for every service. The design document lists the services and tiers each integration uses so your team can price it with that calculator. We do not quote Azure costs ourselves because they depend on your volumes and agreements.
Can you support EDI with large retailers?
Yes, usually by combining an EDI provider or AppSource EDI add-on for the trading-partner side with Azure or Business Central for mapping and posting. Retailer compliance rules vary widely, so the partner list and document types are confirmed in the scoping call.
Who watches the integrations after go-live?
Your team, us, or both. Alerts and dashboards are set up either way, with a written runbook for resubmitting failed messages. Ongoing monitoring can be part of a support arrangement if you prefer not to staff it.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.