Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hi,

I’m facing the following challenge:

I have four custom tables in Dataverse: A, B, C, and D.

A, B, and C: These tables contain duplicate records.
D: This table contains data rows that are based on (and reference) records from A, B, and C.

The Problem:

If I simply start deleting duplicates from A, B, and C, the related records in D will lose their references, which will result in incomplete or broken data in D.

What I’m Looking For:

I need an automated solution that:

Detects and removes duplicates from A, B, and C.
Automatically updates the references in D so they correctly point to the remaining (non-deleted) records.

What I’ve Tried:

I’ve used the Deduplicator tool from XRMTools, but it only identifies duplicates and seems to offer no functionality beyond exporting the list.

My Question:

Is there a better process or tool that can handle this automatically, or would I have to resolve this manually?

Thank you in advance!

Categories:

Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

This won't be straight forward. Assuming this is one time cleanup. Try below power automate approach.

Step 1: Create Temporary Mapping Tables

Create one temp table for each of A, B, and C — call them TempA, TempB, and TempC.
These tables will store:
- A natural key (e.g. Title) Field which is your identifier as duplicate
- A "Master" GUID (the one you’ll keep)

These mapping tables act as a controlled lookup reference.

Step 2: Populate Mapping Tables

For each title (or matching logic), identify one master record in A/B/C.
Insert into the temp table:
- Title → Master GUID
This gives you a clean list of what GUID should be used going forward.

Step 3: Update Table D (Reference Table)

Run a Power Automate flow that:
- For each record in D, get the current related GUID (from A, B, or C).
- Use the corresponding temp mapping table to find the correct master GUID.
- Update the reference field in D to point to the master GUID.

Repeat for all three mapping tables (A, B, and C references).

Step 4: Delete Duplicate Records

For each main table (A, B, C):
- Delete all records that are not listed in the corresponding temp table as “Master” GUIDs.
- You’re keeping only the master for each duplicate group.

Step 5: Cleanup

Once all relationships in D are correctly updated and duplicates removed:
- Delete the temp mapping tables (TempA, TempB, TempC) — no longer needed.