Power automate Dataverse Lookup - How to write to the hard column 

I REALLY need to see Dataverse videos! Please keep them coming!

Shane these types of videos may not attract the most views but they are highly valuable. I am sure I could have figured this out but you saved me hours of work (and frustration).

Two days and finally you saved me Shane Young thanks a lot. Dataverse lookup columns are sometimes crazy to handle.

I think the more people understand about Dataverse the higher the demand will be. I'm really struggling to find resources to help me understand Dataverse and it's still very new and a lot of people haven't heard of it yet. On another note...I really appreciate all the videos Shane you've transformed my life and career so THANK YOU!

Thanks a lot Shane for another awesome video! I suggest another simpler trick to get the plural internal name without resorting to the API. In PowerAutomate, add a Dataverse action, select the table of your interest, and then peek code. You'll find its plural name right next to "entityName" :)

Thanks Shane. I have been on the Dataverse/Powerapps journey for a few years now and there have been a few challenges that I dont think I would have gotten over if it wasn't for your videos. Just as you described at the beginning of this video, there are a few explanations on how to complete this task around, but none of them offer a definitive and repeatable process to achieve it. Your trick with the URL/API call provides the right result every time rather than guessing. In a flow in my case where I needed to write to multiple lookup fields at the same time, the error output is totally useless as it doesn't elaborate on which field is causing the error and increases the diagnostic time exponentially. You are another member of this community that has brought me closer to my goals. I'll be sure to pay it forward.

Thanks so much for this Shane. I was doing some development work during my holidays and this stumped me totally yesterday night. So then with much trepidation this morning, I did the magic URL incantation, found out the secret Entity Set Name word and placed in in that pesky lookup field. And it worked :) Like how you took the time to research all the hidden nuts and bolts behind Data verse. Hopefully Microsoft gives you the due recognition because a lot of enterprise clients aren't using Dataverse because of the lack of knowledge. Your video helps demystify this and can help spur adoption.

Ran my Power Automate, wringing my hands waiting for the test to come back...and you nailed it! Thanks Shane.

Could not agree with you more Shane about how stupid HARD this is. I sure hope someone, if not several someone's over at MS are totally embarrassed at what a pain this is! (I wonder if it's this big a nightmare in Azure Logic Apps?!) THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this video! I've been banging on this issue all dang day!

Shane I can't thank you enough I stumbled upon your video by accident after countless hours of troubleshooting a dataverse issue even after finding a lot of blogs my issue wasn't listed but your video gave me the insight needed to finally finish my flow. Thank you.

Subscribed and will be reviewing all your Dataverse vids... there is a large gap in what knowledge on this topic!

Thanks! I had about 20 tabs up of Microsoft docs and forum posts and didn't find this way to find the plural entity name.. I was looking in all the wrong places the whole time - finally got my first green checkmark after this video!! 🍻

This is now my Go To video for this way too convoluted process - Thanks Shane/Chewy

I could kiss you right now for the frustration you have saved me! I have been trying to figure this thing out for days, thank you for explaining it quickly and efficiently!

Thanks! I've been looking for a workaround for the past three hours and finally saw your video, Man, you are a life saver.

Allways the same. Blocked on a triccky issue on PowerPlatform, looking for the solution for hours on Google and finally found a Shane Young video explaining everything I need to solve my issue. Thanks a lot, fun videos, very clear explainations, always learning something. Please, continue to make us progress on this techno!

This video saved my life Doing God's work my man

Wish I had found this video yesterday before I wasted my day. Excellent resource!

We were watching a master doing his thing right there!!!! Thanks Shane!

Thank you Shane, ... If it is of any consolation, I had to view your video several times before thinking I understood ;-) . Thank you for your work. This is amazing that we call it low / no code, ... just to bulk upload a table containing lookup.

Shane you are THE MAN!!! This was exactly what I was looking for to solve the same issue you had - spending hours trying to figure this out. Thank you, thank you thank you! I only needed to get to the 12 minute mark where you explain how to get the plural name of the lookup table and bingo! WOOOOHOOOOO....

Thank thank thank! Nothing else left to say. (Came here after watching your video on how to save to Lookups within PowerApps, thanks for that as well.)

Thank you very much Shane the Young man. I have been spending all day sorting it out. You did it man, kudos champ.

16:43....I wasted my whole day to figure out this.... That "es" ate up my whole day 🙃.. Thanks a lot Shane!! At last your video helped me as always......Thanks a million!! 😀

You are my hero! I was literally trying to figure this out and just put your name in front of the issue and boom, solution!

Thank you for this great video Shane. This is why is so important to create tables with singular names so we avoid that strange entity name. I think it's not sufficiently emphazised in the documentation. It says the following: "Display name This is the singular name for the table that will be shown in the app. This can be changed later."

Wow, glad you worked that out. I'm just trying to finish a piece of customer work and hit this and thought wtf! Then found this ..phew

Man i can not thank you enough, even though this video is two years old, you pulled me out of my frustration. I just had to remove those damn single quotes xD

Great tips Shane. I struggled myself to get these values and using the first function. More Dataverse please.

Thanks Shane... Again you saved me like hours and hours. Watched this 4 times. Still figuring it out man.

You are a lifesaver, thank you for sharing. I had it close just didn't know about the / before the GUID. Been trying every combination.

Another great video Shane. Please please please make more Dataverse videos. fFor security reasons my employer only uses Dataverse. One idea: what are the pros and cons of using an auto number and/or the GUID in Dataverse. This is causing me pain at the moment. Thanks, Dave

Thanks a lot Shane for such an informative video. Just one point to add here is that for Dataverse(legacy) actions, it will be just GUID instead of the plural name and then GUID.

Thank you, you saved me HOURS of figuring this out!

Thanks Shane young you are amazing person i have learned many things from you and i will remember this on every moment of my life that you are providing me really hard core MS CRM Consultant Thhhhaaaannnnnnnnkkkkkssssss !!!!!! aaaaaaa LooTTTTTTTTT

Just came across this bit of gold - Thank you!! I always struggle with this. Often, I'm able to use the OData Id, where I expect this method would also work (and using just the "unique identifier for the ..." does not work). Not sure if that Odata Id is a new thing since this video was created. It also doesn't always work, so I'm glad to have the right method.

Thanks so much for this! That was way too difficult! Please keep the videos coming!

You have saved me big time !! Thank you so much for this precious tutorial.

Needed this refresher today and you were there for me. Thanks dude.

Thank you sooo much for your great tutorial. I was desperately searching for a solution.... no where else, but you :D

hi shane you are a life saver... I was struggling to fix this for hours.... well I have the exact reaction as your's....yyyyyyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh 🙌

Just wanted to let you know that you showed me that my cast to a lookup was supposed to be "systemusers" and not "systemuser". I hadn't used any plural names before so I had no idea. I was stuck on that for awhile, so thank you.

Thanks Shane! 😊 I wish I found this video before I lost my entire Friday fighting with Dataverse/PA before giving up 😂

Just another time you save me hours of trying and failing. Thank you so much dude!

The set name is now available to be copied directly from the properties view of the table in Dataverse rather than using the URL. Click the `Tools` drop drown and you will see an option to `Copy Set Name` 👍

Thanks Shane, this is an amazing video and thanks for not missing any steps!

Thank you Shane! Another day, another video to help solve my problem at work. :)

Thanks, Shane! Your videos have always helped me!

Hello Shane, Thanks for your amazing videos ! Juste for some who will encoure an error ( Bad Request Error ) Try to put just the id of the lookup field that would be fine ( i faced this error and did that ) Sharing is caring

This is awesome , Shane. Thank you for sharing with us.

This was a lifesaver - thankyou so much

I find Dataverse useful because it allows me to reference views in Dataverse that have 2000 items or fewer in which is how I try to skirt delegation. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.) My point is that although it’s not as common as SharePoint, Dataverse is my go-to. I also find the way you can custom create query filter views from model driven apps is helpful. If I’m not sure of results returned from a canvas created expression I check it using the model driven Dataverse views. Bottom line, Dataverse can do more than SharePoint so more Dataverse is very much appreciated. Thank you.

u just saved my job buddy that you and god bless you !!

Man, you are THE BEST!!!!!

Great video man, I am heavily using Dataverse with Flows so more videos on this would be great. Especially when working with data from external sources like MS SQL ie Dataflows.

Man YOU ARE A SAVER!!!! thank you so much....

YES! More Dataverse please!!!

Thanks for doing the homework! That was a tough one! Well done 👍

Thanks!!!! You save me a lot of time! 😊

Thanks Shane, it was realy helpful for me .....bundle of thanks

Thanks, Shane. Very very useful. Kind regards, Robb

Thanks, very helpful. This thing shouldn't be this complicated

Thanks for the great video. I was trying to load data using a DataFlow, but it didn't allow me to write to a relationship lookup column. This video helped me get a Power Automate Flow working! I found that when Exporting data from a table, the CSV file that is downloaded is named with the table Plural name, at least for the ones I exported. I'm not sure if it will always hold true.

Great Video Shane...Helped a lot !!....I'm just stuck now for a choice column....can you do a video on that as well ?...it seems to be very hard to do

I never comment but I have been racking my brain on this issue. I have a SPO list that I need to import nightly and in that list there is a lookup column. I need it to convert and get the name into the dataverse table. Running into a lot of issues. This is great if I KNEW what name would be picked every time but I don't :(

You are really cool! Your videos are awesome 😊 I learned a lot with all your videos Thanks a lot 🙋🏻‍♂️

As always, legend, cheers for this

Hi Shane - *definitely* keen to see more Dataverse videos - the primary data source isn't always Sharepoint...

Thank you for all your good work.

Thanks, Shane! Your videos are always helpful! Any idea how the process would change if you inserted a new row that had two favorite toys (option set that allows multiple selections)?

You saved me! Legend!

Hey Shane, LOOOOONG time fan, first time I think I have commented with a question though. (Just so you know, sometimes I set you to binge mode (eventually Ill need the info I figure haha). Anyway, thanks for this video - when I watched it I wasn't really looking for a solution, but sure enough a couple of use cases have since come up. (I still struggle somewhat with the differences between all of the ID's and GUID's and row numbers etc when it comes to using them in Power Automate, clearly this is something that MS needs to unify or at least come up with some clear terminology for). I know this video doesn't quite cover my exact situation (actually, this is the first of your videos I have actually struggled to get my head around the why's of doing it the way you have done it). So I thought I would through this one at you while I go down the rabbit hole myself. Perhaps it would be a good topic/use case for a future video? I have an N:Many relationship custom field added to my Contact table that specifies the Unit that contact is a Resident of (think Building Management/Owners Assoc. type industry). Seeing as Business rules cant have other fields merged in when updating field values, I figure I need to use a flow or Dynamics workflow (but this is strictly a PowerApps question, so I have chosen Flow). Each time a contact record is added/modified and a record exists in the "Resident of Unit" lookup field. I want to update the contact's primary Address as follows: Unit 123 Chewie Street Address Line 2: adds2 info for chewie Address Line 3: adds3 info for chewie and so on.... I have tried multiple ways to select the data from the records that I need and added a condition that checks to see if a record exists for Address 1/Primary Address for the contact, if it does, it should update if it does not, it should create. Here's a screenshot of where I am at: I really don't understand why Dataverse in Flow needs to be this hard. Presumably youtube will remove any URL's to images that I put here. So if they have, I will get them to you another way. differentbitcomau-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/bronson_differentbit_com_au/EYKxDvsHWPBNpd-gSvZ0J-UB84QmSq6LbSYJWrmq8oUXLw?e=d3ivNb differentbitcomau-my.sharepoint.com/:i:/g/personal/bronson_differentbit_com_au/ERGnAEcPwABOg8Patp5IEhkBG-_B4oEIgzrDSg83UnnRRw?e=KJLCxT Oh, if and when I find my solution, I shall update this comment. When I get around to adding it to the community also, I'll add a link to that too.

Whaaaaat!? Thank you so much for this! I was struggling blindly before, now I'm struggling with a better direction! :P Edit: When I try to make the compose it fails because it is expecting a string/array and mine is returning an object. Any guesses what's going on? Edit #2: Nevermind , even though you explicitly said use Value, and not the Body my silly brain decided to click on Body. THANKS A BUNCH!

Great video again Shane! Could you consider a video on Dataverse Search Preview?

Thanks for the video 🙏🏻

This is 2024. This RU-vid Video is the only video that Google has to recommend. THIS VIDEO IS JUST WRONG. JUST AN FYI TO EVERYONE: Step 1. Go to the Dataverse table you are using in the Lookup Column. Go to the Properties and Copy the "Logical name" of that table. Again. Step 2. For reference we are here @13:20. PASTE the logical name in the Lookup Column box. for the example in the video it might look something like "new_systemuser" Step 3. You need to put in the row ID of the thing you want. So the @7:22, where Shane is filtering his email. Step 4. The end result in that lookup column should be similar to "new_systemuser(Outputs('Compose'))"

you're amazing man

Amazing! Would never have figured that out

Grazie grazie grazie grazie! You saved my life!

Thanks Shane! This Compose function seems more trouble than it is worth though. Any harm in limiting the list rows to one row, and then keeping the For Each loop (which would only run on one record)?

As an idea for a QTT - Compare Microsoft Power Automate and Azure Logic Apps

Thanks Shane for this . I thought the plural name is shown in the create table area or info on the table I’m probably wrong though . Loving your vids by the way...

Please upload more videos on power automation

Very helpful, great work! Can you also kindly do a power automate between SQL server tables and Dataverse tables?

Hi Shane awesome video!!!! Have you done a patch attachments to SharePoint?

Thanks, it worked.

Hey Shane, nice video! Got an idea for a similar one, albeit with a connection to an external source. On this video you populate a single value and you choose first item, right? Could you make a video on how you could populate Lookup columns with data from Excel, to update all rows existing at once? Like this: Say you've got a list of Chewy's bones and colors. Your Excel has duplicates colors to create 1 to 1 reference so each bone has a color. The Dataverse instead, picks the color from a lookup and auto assigns it to every bone record. Possible? :P

Great Video Shane! Any tricks or tips to handle Many-to-Many relationship scenarios?

Thank you Shane! My problem is when the relationship between the tables is many to many and the tables have thousands of records.

Thank you, this is very helpful!

very nice video. Thank you ! I try to find a way to get dataverse choice column guid but cant find any info on line. Can you also give some direction on choice column? Thanks!

Thank you, this is very helpful!

Would love to see how to take Customer Voice responses in Dataverse and populate a SharePoint list.

hey shane - thanks for this video - how about update dataverse record

Great video Shane (as always)!. It works perfect. I tried the same to Update a row, but I get a BadRequest error message. Is there something I should do differently?

Thanks Shane excellent

Thank you Shane!

Shane, can't seem to find the URL in the video description and chance it changed or is out of date? If not, could you please update the description?

Thanks for the video Sane - is there a way to trigger a Dataflow refresh by using the API? Thank you again for the great videos!

thank you so much this a very big help! appreciate it :)