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Create and edit tables using Power Apps

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Power Apps provides an easy way to view, create, and edit tables for Microsoft Dataverse.

View tables

Sign into Power Apps, and then select Tables on the left navigation pane. If the item isn’t in the side panel pane, select …More and then select the item you want.

Filter the tables that are displayed using the following tabs:

View Description
Recommended Displays only the standard tables. Standard tables are tables included with Power Apps or Dynamics 365 apps.
Custom Displays only custom tables. Custom tables are created by you and other app makers.
All Displays all the tables.

View tables in Power Apps

You can also select a column heading from the table view, and then select Filter by to display tables by a certain property, such as Type, Managed, or Tags.

Create a table

There are several ways to create a new table:

Create new tables (preview)

[This topic is pre-release documentation and is subject to change.]

Use the table visual designer experience where you create and edit tables, configure table relationships, and can view a diagram of your data.

Visual table designer in Power Apps

Important

  • This is a preview feature.
  • Preview features aren’t meant for production use and may have restricted functionality. These features are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.

  1. Command bar:

    • Back. Takes you back where you were in Power Apps.
    • New table. Create a new table using any of the methods described in this article.
    • Hide data or View data. Closes or displays the table row editor.
    • Create relationships. Creates a table relationship between two tables. Select a table on the canvas and CTRL + click another table, then select Create relationships. More information: Types of table relationships (NOTE: many-to-many relationships aren't supported)
    • Delete. Deletes the table and all associated table rows.

  2. Table visual designer canvas. On the table visual designer canvas, you can drag tables around the canvas to relocate them and select ... to invoke the table actions menu, and view a diagram of your data.

  3. Table visual designer canvas actions:

    • +. Zoom in to increase the size of the table objects on the canvas.
    • -. Zoom out to decrease the size of the table objects on the canvas.
    • Fit view. Resize to fit within the available space in the browser tab.
    • Show map or Hide map. When Show map is selected, displays a compact representation of the tables on the canvas.

  4. Table actions menu:

    • Hide data or View data. Closes or displays the table row editor.
    • Row ownership. Select the ownership type as either user or team, or organization.
    • Properties. Edit the table display name, plural name, description, and schema name.
    • Delete. Delete the table and all associated rows.

  5. Table row editor. In this area, create new, edit, or delete rows, create new columns, change the table ownership type, and edit table properties.

Tip

Can't find the tables you created on the canvas? Select Fit view on the table visual designer canvas actions menu.

Create a table with the visual table designer by using any of the following methods:

Start with Copilot

Describe your data in natural language and Copilot generates tables along with relationships for you.

Note

To use this feature, note the following requirements:

  1. From the Choose an option to create tables page, select Start with Copilot.
  2. Describe the tables you'd like to create with the assistance of Copilot. You can also specify the number of tables to create, size of table, and whether to include relationship by configuring the Table options menu.
  3. Keep iterating with Copilot in the Copilot panel until you're satisfied with your data. More information: Review the table
  4. When you're finished, select Save and exit.

Set advanced properties

From the Tables area, on the command bar select New table > Set advanced properties. This opens the New table properties panel. You start with a blank table and enter the table properties, such as name, and description. Expand Advanced options to set more properties, such as track changes and audit changes.

Create a new table pane.

Table properties

Enter data for the following properties.

Property Description
Display name This is the singular name for the table that is shown in the app. This can be changed later.
Plural display name This is the plural name for the table that is shown in the app. This can be changed later.
Description Provide a meaningful description of the purpose of the table.

Select Enable Attachments to append notes and files to records for this table.

Select the Primary column tab if you want to change the Display name or Description of the primary column. The primary column is used by lookup fields when establishing relationships with other tables.

Important

After you save the table, the Primary column display name and description can't be changed.

Advanced options

Select Advanced options to display additional properties that are optional for a table.

Property Description
Schema name By default, the schema name is automatically created for you based on the display name, but you can change it. The schema name can't contain spaces and includes the customization prefix for the Dataverse solution publisher. You can't change this after the table is saved.
Type Select the type of table. Use standard for most tables. Activity tables are a special table that can only be owned by a user or team, but can't be owned by an organization. Virtual tables require the table be populated with data from an external source. Elastic tables should be considered when your business scenario entails very large data volumes with high throughput, storage, and low latency requirements.
Record ownership Switch the table type to Activity table to create tables that can manage tasks. The type of Ownership defines who can perform operations on a record.
Choose a table image You can choose whether to display an image for the table. This image is displayed in Power Apps in some design areas. Notice that the image doesn't appear in apps using the table. To display images in apps, use the image column. More information: Image columns
Color Set a color to be used for the table in model-driven apps.
Apply duplicate detection rules If duplicate detection is enabled for your organization, enabling this allows you to create duplicate detection rules for this table.
Track changes Enables data synchronization in a performant way by detecting what data has changed since the data was initially extracted or last synchronized. This option must be enabled for certain features such as Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse.
Provide custom help When selected, set a Help URL to control what page users see when they select the help button in the application. Use this to provide guidance specific to your company processes for the table.
Audit changes to its data When auditing is enabled for your organization, this allows for changes to table records to be captured over time. When you enable auditing for a table, auditing is also enabled on all its fields. You can select or clear fields that you want to enable auditing on.
Leverage quick create form if available After you've created and published a Quick Create Form for this table, people have the option to create a new record using the Create button in the navigation pane. More information: Create and design model-driven app forms
When this is enabled for a custom activity table, the custom activity is visible in the group of activity entities when people use the Create button in the navigation pane. However, because activities don't support quick create forms, the main form is used when the custom table icon is selected.
Enable long term retention Dataverse supports custom retention policies to securely retain unlimited data long term in a cost-efficient way. More information: Long term data retention overview
Creating a new activity Associate activities to records for this table.
Doing a mail merge App users can use this table with mail merge.
Setting up OneNote integration When you turn on OneNote integration, you have the benefits of using OneNote to take or review customer notes from within your records. Requires SharePoint document management to be set up. More information: Set up OneNote integration
Setting up SharePoint document management After other tasks have been performed to enable document management for your organization, enabling this feature allows for this table to participate in integration with SharePoint. More information: Manage your documents using SharePoint
Can have connections Use the connections feature to show how records for this table have connections to records of other tables that also have connections enabled.
Can have a contact email Send emails using an email address stored in one of the fields for this table. If a Single Line of Text column with format set to email doesn't already exist for this table, a new one is created when you enable sending email.
Have an access team Create team templates for this table.
Can be linked to feedback Let app users write feedback for any table record, or rate table records within a defined rating range. More information: Configure a table for feedback/ratings
Appear in search results Enable so that table records can be included in search results when using an app.
Can be taken offline Makes data in this table available while the Power Apps application isn't connected to a network.
Can be added to a queue Use the table with queues. Queues improve routing and sharing of work by making records for this table available in a central place that everyone can access.

Select Save to continue, this closes the New table panel and display the table hub.

Create with external data

Use an Excel file/CSV file or SharePoint list to populate a table with your data, which uses copilot to assist with the table generation.

Note

Generally available copilot features are enabled by default and can't be turned off. To disable them, a tenant admin must contact support.

  1. From the Tables area, on the command bar select New table > Create with external data, and then select either File (Excel, .CSV) or SharePoint list.

    1. Select from device or drag and drop your Excel file onto the Upload an Excel file page.
    2. The data from the Excel file is displayed as a Dataverse table. Select a column header > Edit column to make changes, such as the column name or data type.
    3. When you're finished, select Create.

    For more information about how AI is used with this feature, go to FAQ for Excel to table and app.

SharePoint columns not used in Dataverse table generation

The following columns aren’t included when generating a Dataverse table from a SharePoint list because the respective data types aren’t supported with Dataverse:

  • Image
  • Task outcome
  • External data
  • Managed metadata
  • Attachment (single)
  • Multiple attachments / images
  • SharePoint list system columns
  • Symbol at column level (currency, prefix, postfix) in numbers
  • Unique values

Create a virtual table

A virtual table is a custom table in Microsoft Dataverse that has columns containing data from an external data source, such as Azure SQL Database or SharePoint.

  1. From the Tables area, on the command bar select New table > Create a virtual table.
  2. Follow the New table from external data wizard to create the virtual table. More information: Create the virtual table

Edit a table

While viewing tables, select the table you want to edit, and then select Properties from the command bar if you want to edit the table properties.

Edit table properties

Edit table components using the table hub

To edit form components, open the table to display the table hub. The table hub displays the table components described in the following sections.

Table hub

Table properties

Displays a few common properties for the table. Select Properties on the command bar to edit the table properties.

Schema

From the Schema area, select from the following table components to open the area where you can view and open existing components or create a new one.

Data experiences

From the Data experiences area select from the following table components to open the area where you can view and open existing components or create a new one.

Customizations

From the Customizations area, select from the following table components to open the area where you can view and open existing components or create a new one.

Table columns and data

View and create table record data for the table. Select the number of columns, such as +17 more, to select columns to display in the columns and data view.

Select additional columns to display in the columns and data view

Table designer

From the table hub, select Edit to open the table designer. The table designer lets you make extensive changes to a table including editing or adding new records and columns, editing table properties, or creating a model-driven app based on the table.

Table hub video

Update forms and views

From the table hub, select Update forms and views to add selected columns to forms and views in this table without having to edit them in the form and view designers. More information: Update forms and views using table designer

Delete a table

As someone with the system administrator security role, you can delete custom tables that aren't part of a managed solution.

Warning

When you delete a custom table, the database tables that store data for that table are deleted and all data they contain is lost. Any associated records that have a parental relationship to the custom table are also deleted. For more information about parental relationships, see Create and edit relationships between tables.

The only way to recover data from a table that was deleted is to restore the database from a point before the table was deleted. More information: Backup and restore instances

While viewing tables, select the table, and then select Delete from the menu.

If the table has dependencies that prevent it from being deleted you see an error message. To identify and remove any dependencies, you need to use the solution explorer. More information Identify table dependencies

See also

Build apps through conversation (preview)

Create a custom table using code