Create new custom entity

Data Entities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations are much like target entities in AX2012. There are the various loads that come pre-built out of the box for you to use at go-live and then potentially even after go-live. However you can also built custom entities and utilize them for data import/export purpose. In this Blog I am going to demonstrate steps for creating custom data entity and using it to import data from excel file.

Creating Custom Data Entity:

1. In Visual Studio, on the project that you have created Click-Right, and then click Add > New Item. The Add new Item window will open. Select Data Entity and set relevant name.

     2. On clicking Add, the Data entity wizard will show up. Specify the properties for the data entity and click Next.             You can also use the properties that are shown in screen shot below:

3. Select all or any number of fields from primary data source that appears on the following window.

         4. On clicking Finish, a data entity and staging table will be added to your project.

    5. Build your project so that your Custom Data Entity will show up on Data Entity screen at D365FO dashboard.

Importing Data from Excel:

After creating data entity, you can now import the data from excel file that you have created.

1. Go to user dashboard and click Data Management.

2. In Data Management workspace click Import tile.

         3. Import Job page will show up on clicking Import:

   4. Set any relevant job name, Excel in source data format, name of the entity that you have created by above              steps in Entity name.

5. Click Upload and select the excel file that you created.

6. Once the file is uploaded you will see that entity is added in middle section.

    7. You might receive an error message that few fields are not mapped correctly between the source file and target             entity.

8. Clicking view map will open the screen (similar to one below). You can correct the mapping of source fields                 that might not be mapped to target fields.

    9. Once fields are mapped correctly, click Import button on top of the Import Job page.

10. After the import is completed, the job execution summary page will open showing that data is imported                       successfully.

http://www.axpulse.com/2018/08/15/using-custom-data-entities-to-import-data-from-excel-in-dynamics-365-fo/