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Updated auto number field on existing records, however new records ignore the auto number cadence

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Posted on by Juhoon_P

I have a custom ID field on Contact table as the attached screenshot.

I used Power Automate to set ID to some of the existing contacts (circled in blue). As a test, I created a new contact in the red circle. The issue is that the new contact(s) do not respect the existing auto number values and cadence. Because I have manually set the IDs in blue through Power Automate in the same format, I expected the one in red to be "C00016" instead of "C00001." The ID is an auto number type field with the expression to set it such as "Cxxxxx" with the number increment by 1.

Anyone has ideas why the new contact does not follow the auto number format based on the existing records?

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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AhmedSalih 6,680 Moderator on at

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@Juhoon_P, Make sure you create an Alternate Key and assign it to your ID Column. Before you do that, remove any duplicates data from the column.

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Ahmed

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Juhoon_P 11 on at

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Thanks @AhmedSalih Unfortunately, then the system prevents entry of a record entirely with an alternate key now.
It is strange to me that the insert action does not respect the existing autonumber values.

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AhmedSalih 6,680 Moderator on at

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@Juhoon_P, are you entering the data manually to the ID column? Also, what is the seed value for your autonumber format?

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AhmedSalih 6,680 Moderator on at

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@Juhoon_P, also remember that autonumber columns do not reset when records are deleted. So for example if you have autonumber values from 1 to 10, and you deleted all the records, when you start inserting values again, it will start from 11.

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Juhoon_P 11 on at

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@AhmedSalih Yes I have set the values on existing records using Power Automate, but I guess it makes no difference between setting it manually. The seed value is C00001.

The issue is that the system ignores the current autonumbering sequence that was set through Power Automate as seen in the attachment, and a new contact is appended with one of the existing auto number values.

If the number started from 11 in your example, this issue won't be an issue because that is the behaviour I expected.

Perhaps, Microsoft stores those values somewhere in the backend and setting autonumber manually/workflow/flow does not get to set that value into the server side?

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Juhoon_P 11 on at

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@AhmedSalih Nevermind. Autonumber isn't that "smart." I had thought that the autonumber field would look at the existing table and insert the next number. What you said make sense about it only looks at seed value.

I am going to set the autonumber manually on all existing records, and set the seed value of autonumber ID field to be greater than the last manual ID number.

Thanks for your help!

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