Migrating data of LookUp colum between environments

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Posted on by Thinzar

Hello, I am now migrating data from one environment to another using data flows (connector as Dataverse). But, I am facing with some issues in migrating lookup column (which is used as foreign key column in child table). I have also created the alternate key and mapped to the unique column name. However, the column appears as null.

Plus, I could not create an alternate key for the primary key in the parent table. Why? How should I solve this problem to populate data in that lookup column. In this, tbl_FundRequests is the lookup column as well as foreign key in the child table, the key which is from the parent table.

Thanks.

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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MichaelFP 1,991 Moderator on at

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You will do this migration one time only? If it is i would recommend to to use Configuration Migration Utility, it is more simple and easy to copy data.

Configuration Migration tool - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

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Ram Prakash Duraisamy 5,775 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi ,

In Simple Way,, if the data is less please goahead with Data Import using Excel Operation

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Thinzar on at

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@Ram Prakash, @MichaelFP,

Thanks for the suggestions.

Is there any way can I use Dataflows to populate the Lookup column correctly?

Because, it is way more convenient for us to use Dataflows since it allows manual sync by using Refresh.

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Parvez Ghumra 1,579 Moderator on at

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@thinzar I would suggest reviewing the status of the Dataflows and refresh history. There might be some evidence of failed refreshes with potentially some meaningful errors which you could use to troubleshoot

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Fubar 8,487 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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For Dataflows:

You need to define an Alternate Key for each Lookup table (i.e. an Alt Key defined on each Parent table [the table with the actual lookup field defined on it is the child])

With an Alt Key on the table being Looked up the field becomes available to the Dataflow, and you can map your value to it.

Unfortunately with Dataflows:

Without an Alternate Key you won't be able to map source data to the Lookup field

You cannot use the existing Primary Key column (note: the actual Primary Key is not the "Primary Name" column, it is an auto generated GUID that this held in a field with the same schema name as the Table but with an 'id' suffix e.g. for a Table called "new_table" the primary key is in a column called "new_tableid").

This video runs through the basic steps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m24yu-dwK8Q

As already mentioned by previous posters, if it is a one time import then doing an out of the box data import or using the Configuration Management Tool may be an easier option as both of them do not require a Alt Key to be defined.

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