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Environment connection - Dataflows configuration

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Posted on by sneha_valabailu

Hi,

I am trying to build a dataflow that compares data from an excel sheet with the data in dataverse. The dataflow is then supposed to only import records that are not present in the database. This dataflow will be refreshed from power automate to achieve import from excel. However, when I choose the dataverse table, I am forced to select the environment(hardcode) instead of making it configurable somehow.

Can dataflows be deployed from one environment to the other ?
How do we make the details of the dataflows such as environment address, one drive location etc., configurable ?

We have a requirement in our application to handle import from excel for more than 8k rows. The performance of Power automate to execute the same wasn’t good enough. We are hence evaluating the use of dataflows to handle the same.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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Drew Poggemann 9,287 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @sneha_valabailu ,

This request is a posted idea already, you may want to add your vote. (https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/Use-Environment-Variables-in-Dataflows/idi-p/1190741).

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sneha_valabailu 6 on at

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Thank you @dpoggemann ! Can you also help me confirm if it is possible to easily move dataflows from one environment to another ?

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Drew Poggemann 9,287 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @sneha_valabailu ,

Dataflows can be added to solutions but not sure on the ALM migration between environments at this time. Please see the following: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/ALM-for-PowerApps-DataFlows/idi-p/437629

unless this has been resolved and not updated in the Ideas listing. Maybe someone else will have more information for you on this one.

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PowerDylan 32 on at

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So, I've been looking for a solution for ALM in my company's Power Platform enviroment, specifically for dynamically setting the DataVerse environment for some data sources that are being created in each of the environments. With thanks to Kulchandra Neupane on this thread: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Insert-Parameter-in-M-language/m-p/757880/highlight/true#M365239 I realized that after creating a parmeter in my dataflow (Manage parameters >> New parameter) I could set the current value of the parameter to my org URL: orgXXXXXXXX.crm3.dynamics.com. Then, in all of the queries on the data source step that needed to access this DataVerse location, I just put
CommonDataService.Database(""&RAMP_param_env&"")
where RAMP_param_env was my parameter name. Then, as one of the deployment steps in the new environment, before I set the connection with my credentials, I first update this parameter to the new environment's URL. It's not super sweet, but it does save me from having to update this URL in every query in my dataflow, I just need to update it in the one place. It would, of course, be super sweet if Microsoft would add the ability to pass a solution's environmental variable into the dataflow, so that it could be set as part of the import process with the other environmental variables (they even have a "data source" type that would work perfectly)... it looks like it's been 3 years since the idea to be able to access solution-specific environmental variables was suggested https://ideas.powerapps.com/d365community/idea/500f437f-0cf2-4654-816b-c5f342855e08 and from what I can tell, the feature is still not available. More tightly coupling dataflows with solutions would possibly have another advantage in managed deployments: I've experienced bugginess a couple of times where updating a solution does not actually update the dataflows in the new environment and had to delete the whole solution and re-import it cleanly to get them caught-up. Hopefully this somewhat manual workaround will at least help save some of you some work!

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fshaikh 33 on at

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Hi @PowerDylan ,

But doing this will create an unmanaged layer in the solution? Doing any kind of editing, either a parameter or directly changing the connection. How to avoid that unmanaged solution layer?

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