Prevent duplicate data to be entered on the system

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Posted on by WebPortal

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Hello,

In SharePoint lists, there is an efficient, simple way of avoinding duplicates.

However, in Dataverse, that is not the case.

So, how to avoid users with the same email?

I believe there are several server-side solutions for this, but can't manage to get any of them working...

1-Creating alternate keys:

Added an alternate key that is simply the email column:

However, upon testing entering a record with an existing email, it just saved the data.. so I wonder what - if anything - is happening.

2-Creating business rules.

Tried this one, but can't figure out how it works, when the old Dynamics 365 UI shows as a pop-up, it gets a bit scary and I have given up.

3-Add-ins

Still can't figure out how these work.

Isn't there just a check box somewhere in the table for this?

Can anyone help?

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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MarioRing 541 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi,

There is an out-of-the-box feature for duplicate detection and prevention.

See documentation provided here.

You can set your own duplicate detection rules for custom entities - It is not as scary as you think!;). See here how to do this.

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Fubar 8,342 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Just be aware that Duplicate Detection rules are just a warning the user can still choose to save the duplicate - they are often all you need. But if you need to enforce unique then Alternate keys are what you would use - if this didn't work for you you may not have something configured correctly.

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WebPortal 2,295 on at

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I guess the problem is Dataverse allows the creation of an alternate key, but if there are already duplicates, nothing will happen, the key won't work, and a warning shows up on the right, which is not very clear.

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Parvez Ghumra 1,579 Moderator on at

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@WebPortal Yes, you will need to de-dupe any pre-existing data in the environment before you Key can be activated. But I would agree, this is probably the most appropriate solution for your scenario

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WebPortal 2,295 on at

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@parvezghumra
I have removed the duplicates from the "email" field and tried again to create the alternate key.
It throws an error:
The CREATE UNIQUE INDEX statement terminated because a duplicate key was found for the object name 'dbo.cre05_FormandosGlobalBase' and the index name 'ndx_for_entitykey_cre05_Email_AK'. The duplicate key value is <redacted>.

Double-checked again in Excel, there are no duplicates.

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