Ways to Open a Dataverse Table in Excel

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Posted on by IPC_ahaas

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Not sure if this is the right place to post this. Our goal is to allow users to open a Dataverse table as read-only.

There seem to be two ways to do this:

1) From a web browser (left)

Access the target Power Platform Environment
Find the table
Download the table as an Excel file
Open the Excel file
Login to the PowerApps Office Add-in

2) From Excel (right)

Open Excel
Use the "Get Data" option
Choose "From Power Platform > From Dataverse"
Sign-in
Select Table from the Environment List

So here are my questions:

Why would someone choose one over the other?
The Excel method seems easier for an end-user, but why don't I have an option to publish changes?
The user I have testing this (shown in screenshots) cannot see the Environment to access the Dataverse table to download it as an Excel file - why?

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,433 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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hi @IPC_ahaas

Firstly let me add, if you are using Power BI, you can also leverage Power BI to get the data into Excel as well and my primary recommendationm second would be Get Data, Download would be last. This is me without knowing anything about what your users will do

As for which one do you do.

Honestly it depends on what you want to do? Downloading the data gives you a one time copy and takes the stress off the server, but what if you have millions of records? Its not really.. that simple

Same for for if you use Get Data. Its constantly connected technically and uses a bit more resources on both sides. But.. again if you have tons of records, it can be... problematic as an impact

To me

1) How many people are doing this

2) How often are you using looking to "download data" versus refreshing via Get Data

3) How much Power Query transformations etc are you looking at?

and others I won't list yet :-)

If these suggestions help resolve your issue, Please consider Marking the answer as such and also maybe a like.

Thank you!
Sincerely, Michael Gernaey

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IPC_ahaas 1,387 Moderator on at

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Hi @Michael E. Gernaey,

Thank you for that explanation, that is helpful already.

This is our first foray into accessing Dataverse in Excel. We are not using Power BI at this time. We have dataverse tables that capture daily production data. Our teams want to crunch the data to get an outcome and as time goes on, have that number change with live-ish data.

Is this a perfect opportunity for PowerBi? Probably, but our teams just aren't ready for that. They have lived in Excel for 25 years, so we have to take baby steps to modernize their processes.

1) To start, maybe 5. Eventually, probably 25 will be using a series of (insanely) connected Excel sheets. Yes, that is its own problem - but if we can convert one static infinitely growing sheet into a connected Dataverse table, then we're moving in the right direction IMO.

2) We have staff that work with this data on a daily basis, and will need the previous days data with the current data.

3) I don't even know. Right now this is for one table as a test, eventually it will be several tables (5-15) of data all tied to a day, for every day in the year.

Based on your description, it sounds like "Get Data" via Excel is the way to go. And if anyone needs a snapshot of a point in time, exporting from the Environment is the way to go. Does that sound right?

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,433 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @IPC_ahaas

That is correct. You can export Dynamic or Static instances of the data for those who do not need to stay linked.

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