Dataverse for teams DV4T – Exploring Data Migration

I will keep calling it CDS Lite in the smallest hope that this one day might get the name CDS Lite. It just makes perfect sense to give it a name like this. Allright, enough about the hope for a better naming future…

I know the system is only in preview and many things will change in the next months, but I thought I would give it a go at importing data from CDS to CDS Lite. I had no idea if this was possible, but I was curious to see how it would react.

At the moment there is no connecting to the database through normal tools I have had before

1. XRM Toolbox
2. SSIS – KingsWaySoft
3. Excel Import

Every time I try to connect I get the response saying that I have to use an Oauth method to connect.

PS: Notice how Microsoft has put “LITE” in the error message? It’s a small hope, but it’s a hope 😂

So the only way I found out how to insert data in the Preview was via flow

Flow to the rescue

I am pretty sure that the current doc recommends using Flow for data to CDS Lite (Oakdale), but I am sure this will change in the future somehow. How else are you going to fill 2 million records (estimates from docs on the 2 gig DB size). Flow is not intended for data migration, but I had to use the tools I had available at the time 🙂

First I imported 5694 accounts to my CDS database (top row headings)

The CDS Lite (Oakdale) was empty for accounts, and only included the following columns.

The flow was a little tricky. I actually had to create the flow from the CDS Lite (Oakdale) environment. It did not work otherwise. Current environment connector was fine for writing to CDS – Lite (Oakdale).

The flow will only do 512 records if you don’t open up the paging. Go to settings of the connector and increase the threshold.

I started the flow and patiently waited.

27 minutes later the accounts had been migrated with a warning. I could only find 1 error in the migration, so I consider that a success. All of my accounts were now over to the CDS Lite (Oakdale).

What next

This is all just a beginning of a longer journey for the CDS Lite (Oakdale). Everything is in preview, so there are many things that will change once this is released, and a few years from now. I just wanted to see how to get data in to the system. The reason why might be more clear in a later post where I describe what I see in a future customer scenario for CDS and CDS Lite.