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Dataverse Primary Key Column allowing duplicate values

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Posted on by PRAVEENZNMD

Hello Team,

While creating a dataverse table, there is a default primary key column. However it seems like I can enter duplicate values in that primary column. Is this by design?

Also how can I restrict duplicate entries in table.

Thanks,

Praveen

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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 @PRAVEENZNMD ,

The primary key is actually the GUID of the records in the table, this is unique. The Primary Name field is not unique and really can not be enforced to be unique out of the box. You can setup duplicate detection rules so when someone enters a new record it will provide a warning (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/set-up-duplicate-detection-rules-keep-data-clean) but this can be overridden and the record can be added anyway.

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AhmedSalih 6,678 Moderator on at

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Hello @PRAVEENZNMD , I had to do something similar like you use case before and I just made sure that the data in my Primary Name Column initially has no duplicates (if you have data already), and then create an Alternate Key for the table and select the Primary Name Column. This will make it a primary key and won't allow duplicates.

NOTE: Employee Identification is my Primary Name Column for this table.

Regards,
Ahmed
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SZ-23070748-0 23 on at

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Hello @dpoggemann, I've been wondering how my user can correctly assing a primary key in lookup column if the latter has duplicate values? Consider the following scenario: I want to add lookup column "Project Owner" and lookup "Users" table. In case I have multiple people with the same Full Name (Primary Column of table of "User" name) how can my user know who is a correct "Project Owner"?

What I would like is to have a possibility to concatenate "Full Name" with some other column, let's say Domain Name, which I know is unique. Is something similar possible in Dataverse? What would be your suggestion on how to handle it?

Thank you!

P. S. obviously I don't want to change anything in the system table, I used it just as an example 🙂

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Drew Poggemann 9,287 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @Sergii24 ,

When you setup a lookup and choose the record to populate the lookup, it is not connecting behind the scenes with the Primary Name column but with the GUID of the record so it doesn't really matter to the relationship specifically if it is a duplicate name value. It is of course harder when you are selecting the one to populate the lookup because you would see two with the same name 😉

Note, as mentioned by @AhmedSalih you can set the alternate key on that table to the Primary Name field and force uniqueness.

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