Relationships on Existing Columns

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Posted on by SB-21080103-0

I have tried exporting tables from Access to Dataverse, but the relationships never get exported. The only thing that gets exported are the tables. So, now in Dataverse, I'm trying to create the relationships but I can't because it only allows me to create 'new' lookup columns. I only have 3 tables, but one of them has 160,000 rows. I know people have asked this in the past, but there still doesn't seem to be an answer to this. How can we create the relationships between tables with existing columns? I tried recreating the table, adding the lookup column, and then importing the data. But Dataverse doesn't allow me to enter data in the newly created lookup column. There has to be some way to get this working.

Any help would be appreciated.

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,960 Moderator on at

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HI,

I have no idea what you are talking about.... Why would you not be able to create a relationship between existing Tables?

Also, can you share exactly what you were doing and exactly what DV told you when you tried to import the data? It absolutely works,

My guess is you were putting the wrong type of data or in the wrong format for the LookUp, but trust me it works

Please share and then we can help, words don't tell us anything.

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Fubar 8,487 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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In Dataverse your 1-to-many relationship is the Lookup field (the table with the lookup field is the child/many table). Internally Dataverse links the records by a system generated GUID (which is the Primary Key that is auto populated when a record is created).

Depending on how you choose to data import depends on what options are available to you (e.g. if you have chosen to use a Dataflow then you will also need to establish Alternate Keys to be able to populate Lookups). Generally you will import the Parent table first (this will also create the dataverse primary key guids). Note: I recommend on the Dataverse table to include an extra column to hold the primary key value that you currently have in your source data.

When you import your child records, by default the Lookup mapping will be set to the tables Primary Name column, you can change this mapping (e.g. to set it to the field that holds your parent record value).

Unfortunately the documentation regarding Data Import is not as good as it once was

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/data-platform-import-export#import-the-file

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