Easier Integration With Virtual Tables for Dataverse - Power CAT Live

[@theownmages]

Dataverse to Dataverse virtual table would be huuuuuge! We have 2 separate environment in our production today, and it will stay like that for the foreseeable future

[@devanshbhatt7609]

@Tommy is there a way to do that?

[@devanshbhatt7609]

@theownmages

[@JDoddsYYC]

This looks awesome! Can't wait to use it in a Project... I once wrote a SQL Virtual Data Provider from scratch and it worked great and all, but wasn't nearly as smooth as this looks to be!

[@akpokemon]

My virtual table isn't getting listed in Power BI....

[@THEMASTERTM]

Any advise on how to read those virtual tables from power bi? I cant seem to get it to see those tables

[@Binuh]

Great job, great video...thanks for that. Have you tried to use Synapse SQL Pool as the external source? For the CRUD operations it seems only read works...I get an error when behind the scenes it fails running sp_executesql

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Hi Luis, Synapse tables are analytical in nature so they are only intended to be read only.

[@MarcArsenault]

Great feature guys! Will it be possible in the future to add alternate keys to virtual tables? It would be really useful to use with dataflows to make upsert/delete operations. Cheers!

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Thanks Marc! There are currently no plans for Alternate Keys. Because virtual tables are just metadata on the Dataverse side, it has no control over the alternate key column or indexing needed to support this.

[@janma252]

I wonder whether a virtual table increases the connection speed between the table and a Powerapp. An example. I have linked a SQL server to my Powerapps environment. Sometimes CRUD's take a few seconds longer. If I now connect my SQL tables to Dataverse (create a virtual table from them) and then connect them to Powerapps. Is the performance in the app better? After all, Dataverse is supposed to be the fastest resource connection that is compatible with Powerapps. Best regards, Jan

[@simonjones3591]

Great video! How about a follow up video explaining how to set up events on virtual tables? The MS documentation is sparse to say the least! I want to create a Flow triggered when records are modified in my virtual table. Can’t wrap my head around how or where to call the Dataverse WebAPIs from.

[@bramveldeman8632]

Hello, Are images supported? I tried this but I noticed that my image column in Sharepoint is converted to a text column in the dataverse virtual table. My use case: take a picture via power apps, patch the image to the virtual table (that is based on Sharepoint) Regards, Bram

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Hi Bram, currently Image and File/Attachment data types are not supported by virtual tables but they are in our future feature list. I have no specific dates at this time.

[@AnandavadivelanV]

Thanks, looking forward to that course. What are some limitations with virtual tables, like column numbers, column types. Can we overcome delegation issues we run into when using SharePoint data source if we used virtual tables instead?

[@freakysumit]

This is great . Can we get service now and workday please enabled as new sources . Connectors for this is not best way to build way as There are hard limitation on what can we pull in

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Thanks for the feedback Sumit. We will review additional data sources for future improvements.

[@LucaHempel]

Hey :) Just tried to connect a virtual table to out azure sql data base. After setting up the virtual table I tried to add a new record to the table. Dataverse added a unique idetifier (as a mandantory field, named like my source table). If I try to add a record, dataverse do not allow to edit this field and therefore I can´t add any record to my virtual table. Any idea ? :) BR Luca

[@mozenick1]

Does anyone know when this virtual connector provider will be generally available?

[@nathanhelgren3733]

It is generally available now.

[@johnfromireland7551]

CRUD is a word created by the comic 2000AD and is used only by Judge Dredd and should not be used by anyone else. It's the Law! Oh crud it! Serious question: If you connect to multiple SQL Server tables, that have their own relationships, do those relationships, automatically, get recreated in the Dataverse virtual tables?

[@nathanhelgren3733]

They do not, but for now on the virtual table, you could recreate them by adding a lookup and set the external name of the lookup field to the SQL Server table FK column name.

[@henrychoi3809]

Hi Nathan, thank you very much for the video. I have a question about tables relationship, how do we setup tables relationship between Dataverse table and a virtual table?

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Hi Henry, you would build these as a standard relationship in the maker portal. At this time only 1:M is supported where the Lookup is on the Dataverse native table. Work is under investigation to extend this support.

[@henrychoi3809]

@@nathanhelgren3733 Hi Nathan, thank you for your reply. I am working on the project at work, which I need to off-load 7 years+ data from Dataverse to Azure SQL DB and use virtual table to bring these records back to Dataverse for view purpose. I have issue when I bring the data back into CRM Account page, the transaction page cannot load the specific account records, this is related to tables relationship, am I correct?

[@kghvhgvhgv]

I was hoping for an answer to the licensing question on virtual tables sourced from D365 F&O. Any news on that?

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Hi Axelvrt2, I am unfamiliar with that question, but my colleague handles the F&O virtual tables, please reach out to me separately and I can get you in touch.

[@theownmages]

im spending time building a code generator CLI for dataverse in golang. It essentially authenticates using the Azure CLI, then downloads entity definitions and attribute metadata and builds storage logic on top of the ODATA web api in GO. im liking the CLI so much right now that im thinking of open sourcing it. (after approval from my boss). Do you guys have any tips on open sourcing tooling for dataverse?

[@nathanhelgren3733]

Hi Tommy, questions like this are best submitted through our communities or support tickets.

[@the_kohn]

Thanks for the great presentation. Regarding licensing you mentioned, that the user needs a payed Power Apps license (or D365). Does that mean, that a SharePoint user with an M365 E3 plan, who can use PowerApps without an additional per-user or per-app plan, won't be licensed to use virtual tables? Basically every SharePoint user who wants to work with virtual tables needs some kind of premium license?

[@nathanhelgren3733]

This is correct, in your specific example, the user is using Power Apps as the app creator and SharePoint as the data source. Dataverse is not being used in this scenario. In order to create virtual tables, a license for Dataverse itself must be present from either a Power Apps license or Dynamics 365 license.