Data Import to lookup columns referencing AADUser

[DennyThomas]

Hi Guys,

I've a model driven app with a look up field referencing to aaduser table. However when I try to import data using dataflow, this field is not appearing in the mapping screen even though I added it as an alternate key. But it works if the field is referencing to user table. Then, I tried "Import from excel" option in the model driven app and it shows the look up field  in the mapping screen, however the import job returns an error "the lookup reference could not be resolved". The look up values I'm trying to import are available in aaduser table and no duplicates. I tried most of the fields in aaduser like  guid, email id etc and nothing worked.

Failure Details

AAD User Table

Is this a limitation of aaduser being a virtual table? Is there any other way to import historical data to the look ups referencing aaduser? I really appreciate your help.

[XMabille]

Hello,

Did you find the solution to your import problem with the relationship to the AADUSER table, because I have the same problem as you?

[dpoggemann]

Hi @XMabille and @DennyThomas ,

As far as I know this is a limitation of Virtual Tables.  @NHelgren am I correct on this one?

[NHelgren]

Hi everyone, unfortunately this is an unsupported scenario. There are a few limitations at play here that are causing this behavior.

1. AADUser itself does not allow CUD actions. Even though other VTs have full CRUD the AAD data source does not allow updates through virtual tables and these must happen in AAD itself.

2. Import and Export from excel are not currently supported for Virtual Tables. 

[THowkins96]

Hi @NHelgren 

This was helpful to know.

Is there going to be an update at all that will enable us to import data for migration using the AAD Users table as a lookup? Or is this something that will never be possible?

Many thanks

Tom

[NHelgren]

Hi @THowkins96, 

Could you clarify for me what the scenario is for this? Is the request to be able to impost data from Dataverse into AAD or something else? If this is the scenario, we have no plans for this due to restrictions on AAD. If I misunderstood and you mean something else, let me know.

[THowkins96]

Hi @NHelgren 

Our scenario is that we have multiple business units in our organisation, for which we want to assign users per business unit using the AAD Users table, however, when attempting to migrate data the lookup reference fails and gives "The lookup reference could not be resolved." as the reason.

So we are using AAD Users table as a lookup within our "Users by Business Unit" standard table.

I hope the scenario makes sense?

Many thanks

Tom

[NHelgren]

Let's discuss this offline, I may need a little more information.

[kentonh]

I have the same issue: a Dataverse table with columns using a lookup into AAD User. I have an Excel file with data exported from another system to populate this table. The value in the Excel user column is the user's full name as it is in AAD. As described above, Imports using either using the functions "Import Data From Excel" or "Edit Data in Excel" both fail to resolve these names.

Another possible method is to use XrmToolbox SQL 4 CDS to get the aaduserid guid and insert it into the entity field for my vtable.

All this is much less than ideal, not well documented, and something that needs to be addressed for anyone need to be migrate large amounts of data.

[NHelgren]

Hi  , import actions are not supported for AAD User, it is a read only table. This is documented in this online document: Azure Active Directory user (AADUser) table (Microsoft Dataverse) - Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

Allowed operations

Only read and read-multiple operations are possible through the AADUser virtual table.

@kentonh