How to Integrate Dynamics 365 Project Operations with Business Central Using Dataverse

The Project Integration Challenge

Project-based businesses have a unique challenge: the people delivering the project and the people managing its financial impact often work in different systems.

Project Operations can be the place where project teams manage customers, projects, resources, tasks, time, expenses, and project billing. Business Central, meanwhile, can be responsible for financial management, purchasing, inventory, and other ERP processes.

When these systems are not connected, the same project information may have to be entered more than once. A project manager may record time in Project Operations while finance needs the same information in Business Central. A project invoice may be created in one system while the corresponding financial information needs to be reflected in another.

The objective of the integration was therefore not simply to move records between two applications. It was to connect the project lifecycle with the corresponding Business Central processes.

Our Integration Architecture

The integration uses Dataverse plugins as the event-driven layer connecting Project Operations with Business Central.

A Dataverse plugin is a piece of C# code that runs when a Dataverse record is created, updated, or otherwise processed. This provides an opportunity to respond to project-related events and send the relevant information to Business Central.

High-Level Flow

1. A user creates or updates a project-related record in Project Operations.
2. The corresponding Dataverse event triggers the plugin.
3. The plugin reads the required information from Dataverse.
4. The data is transformed into the structure required by Business Central.
5. The plugin calls the relevant Business Central web service.
6. Business Central creates or updates the corresponding record.
7. The Business Central identifier is written back to the Project Operations record where required.
8. If the request fails, the integration captures the error and the data involved in an Error Log.

Keeping Project Customers in Sync

Customers are a fundamental dependency for project processes. Before project transactions can be represented correctly in Business Central, the corresponding customer needs to exist there.

When a customer is created or processed in Project Operations, the integration sends the relevant customer information to Business Central.

What the Integration Achieves

This creates an important link between the two systems. The Project Operations record retains the Business Central number, so users do not have to search manually for the corresponding ERP record.

In our example, Westview Ltd is created as an account in Project Operations. The integration synchronizes it to Business Central and writes the resulting Business Central customer number (C00280) back onto the Project Operations record.

Connecting Projects to Business Central

Customer synchronization is only the beginning. The central object in a project-based integration is the project itself.

When a project is created or prepared for synchronization, the integration retrieves the project information required by Business Central and creates the corresponding project record. It then maintains the relationship between the Project Operations project and the Business Central project using the relevant identifiers.

Why Project Identifiers Matter

A Project Operations record may contain Dataverse identifiers and lookup references, while Business Central works with its own project numbers. These identifiers cannot simply be assumed to be interchangeable. The integration needs to resolve the correct project identifier and use it when subsequent project-related transactions are sent to Business Central.

Continuing the example, Westview-Project-003 is created under Westview Ltd in Project Operations. The integration creates the matching project in Business Central and writes the Business Central project number (PR00340) back to the int_sourceid field on the Project Operations record.

Synchronizing Timesheets

Time is one of the most important project transactions because it connects project activity with project cost and potentially project billing.

When a timesheet or time-entry record is processed in Project Operations, the integration sends the relevant information to Business Central for the corresponding project process.

Typical Information Involved

• Project reference
• Project task or activity
• Resource or worker
• Date
• Duration or hours
• Description
• Billable or non-billable context

A key consideration is that source systems may represent duration differently from the destination. For example, Project Operations may provide duration in minutes while the Business Central process expects hours.

{% if entry.msdyn_duration and entry.msdyn_duration > 0 %}
  {% assign hours = entry.msdyn_duration | divided_by: 60.0 | round: 2 %}
{% else %}
  {% assign hours = 0.0 %}
{% endif %}

The transformation converts a duration expressed in minutes into hours before sending the value to the destination, subject to the target API and business process requirements.

For Westview-Project-003, a time entry of 60 minutes with the description Buying the supplies is recorded in Project Operations (msdyn_timeentries) and converted to 1 hour on the corresponding Business Central project planning line.

Moving Project Expenses into Finance

Project expenses provide another connection between project execution and financial management. Expenses incurred for a project need to be associated with the right project and, where applicable, the appropriate financial dimensions or accounting information.

The integration takes project expense information from Project Operations and sends the relevant information to Business Central.

The Important Part Is the Relationship

An expense amount by itself is not enough. The integration needs to preserve the project context so that the financial transaction can be associated with the intended project.

Context that travels with each expense

Maintaining this context helps finance teams work with project information without requiring project users to manually recreate every expense in the ERP.

Connecting Project Invoices

Project billing is another area where synchronization between project management and finance becomes important. Project Operations may contain the project invoice and its details, while Business Central needs the corresponding invoice information for financial processing. When invoice data is integrated, the relationship between invoice headers and invoice lines must be maintained carefully.

Invoice Integration Considerations

1. Identify the correct project and customer.
2. Retrieve the invoice identifier and source reference.
3. Maintain the relationship between the invoice header and invoice details.
4. Map line-level amounts and quantities using the correct business meaning.
5. Ensure that Business Central receives the required document information.

For example, a Dataverse invoice detail may use a lookup relationship to its invoice. Rather than treating the lookup identifier as the final business value, the integration retrieves the related invoice fields required for mapping.

$expand=Invoices($select=name,cf_sourceid)

The exact navigation property and fields depend on the Dataverse schema in the implementation.

The invoicedetails record carries the line amount and quantity, with the parent invoice’s cf_sourceid pointing to the resulting Business Central sales invoice (S-INV102323). The screenshot below shows a representative Business Central sales invoice, for Apex Manufacturing – Main, generated through the same process.

End-to-End Project Integration Flow

When the individual integrations are viewed together, they form a connected project lifecycle rather than a collection of independent interfaces.

Business Benefits

The value of the integration is not simply that two systems exchange data. The larger benefit is that project and finance processes can operate from connected information.

Key Implementation Considerations

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

A successful Project Operations to Business Central integration is about more than moving records between two Microsoft applications. It is about connecting the project lifecycle with the financial and operational processes that support it.

By using Dataverse plugins to respond to project-related events, the integration moves customers, projects, time, expenses, and invoices into Business Central, while also retrieving information such as inventory availability when the project process needs it.

Just as importantly, the integration provides traceability. Business Central identifiers are written back to the originating records, and failed requests are captured in an Error Log with the relevant data for troubleshooting.