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Dataverse - The easiest way to modify Dataverse data outside of Dataverse and Power Apps

If you need an easy way to add, edit, and delete the records in Dataverse, this post describes a simple method that you can use.

When working with Dataverse, there can often be a need to edit multiple rows and to copy and paste sets of records from elsewhere. There are often times when I want to prepare data for test purposes and the ability to do this is important.

A great feature in Power Apps is the ability to edit Dataverse tables directly from Excel and this a provides a simple way to carry out this task. This post describes this process in more detail.

How to open a Dataverse table in Excel

The first step is to open the table in the designer. The 'Edit' dropdown contains an 'Edit data in Excel' option. If we click this item, the browser downloads an Excel file locally.



If we open the file in the desktop version of Excel, we'll see an option to accept the conditions of the 'Microsoft PowerApps Office Add-in'. Once we accept the conditions, the Add-in prompts us to login using our Microsoft Work account.


Editing a Dataverse table in Excel

After logging in, the contents of the Dataverse table will appear in the Excel spreadsheet. 

We can directly edit the data in the spreadsheet and we can also paste single or multiple ranges of records from the clipboard.

It's also possible to delete the rows from a table. This offers a very simple way to completely clear the contents of a table, which is very helpful when testing apps.


The add-in allows us to set lookups or other complex types using controls that appear in the add-in panel. 


For large tables, we can use an option in the add-in to filter the records by one or more conditions. This makes it easier to find the records that we want to edit.



Once we've completed our modifications, we can click the publish button to save the changes to the underlying table. Once this process succeeds, we can view the updated data from Power Apps that are connected to the table.

Conclusion

If you need to bulk modify data, including the ability to add and delete records and to use copy and paste, the Excel add-in offers a great way to carry out this task.
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