Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hi everyone,

I’m running into an issue with the Configuration Migration Tool (CMT) where certain lookup fields are being skipped during import, even though the corresponding records definitely already exist in the target Dataverse environment.

The import log shows messages like:

“Skipping Lookup record Not Available in target System… All references to this record will be skipped during the import.”

However, when I manually check the target environment, the referenced rows do exist, and the GUIDs are correct.

What I’ve learned so far

I came across Power Apps Portals Tip #107 – Unexpected Skipped Lookups with the Configuration Migration Tool by Nicholas Hayduk, which explains that this can happen when:

An entity is included in the schema,

But the specific records referenced by other entities were not included in the export,

So during import, CMT only resolves lookups against records inside the migration package, not against existing records in Dataverse.

This seems consistent with what I’m seeing.

My scenario

My schema includes some lookup‑related entities (e.g., branches, work types, case handlers, etc.).

I am not exporting records for those tables — I want CMT to use existing rows already in the target environment.

The data being imported contains lookups to those existing values.

But because the entities are listed in the schema, CMT appears to ignore the existing target records and treats the lookups as missing.

So the lookups end up being skipped even though the IDs are definitely valid in Dataverse.

My question

What is the correct or recommended approach when:

You want lookup fields in your imported data to reference existing records in the target environment,

But you do not want to export or import those lookup entities themselves,

And you still want the imports to preserve those lookup relationships?

Should those lookup entities simply be removed from the schema, so CMT resolves lookups against the target environment?

Or is there another recommended way to handle this scenario?

Categories:

Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

The Configuration Migration Tool (CMT) only resolves lookup values in two ways:

Against records included in the export package, or
Against existing target records—but only if the lookup entity is not included in the schema.

Because your schema includes those lookup entities, but you exported zero records for them, CMT assumes that only package‑contained records are valid.
As a result, it ignores existing target rows and skips the lookups.
✔ Recommended approach
If you want your imported data to reference existing Dataverse records:
➡ Remove those lookup entities from the schema entirely.
Then CMT will correctly match lookups against the existing records in the target environment.
Lookup entities stay in the schema -
Only when you intend to migrate those records too and want CMT to maintain referential integrity within the package.