How to Create a Dataverse Table in Power Apps (4 Ways)

Say you’re the IT lead tracking five devices worth $3,216.98 in a spreadsheet nobody trusts. The fix is a Dataverse table: in Power Apps, open Tables > New table > Table (advanced properties), name it, and save.

In this tutorial, we’ll go through every create Dataverse table option on the Tables page, build a real Asset table with an autonumber tag, add rows, and cover table types, ownership and how to copy a table.

What Is a Dataverse Table?

A Dataverse table stores business data in rows and columns, much like an Excel sheet or a SharePoint list. Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI can all read it. New to the platform? Start with what Microsoft Dataverse is and how it stores data.

When you create a table, you pick one of four types under Advanced options > Type:

Table type	Use it for
Standard	Most business data. Account, Contact and Task are standard tables too.
Activity	Rows with a subject, start, end and due date, like calls or appointments.
Virtual	Data that stays in an outside source and shows up in Dataverse at run time.
Elastic	Very large datasets, tens of millions of rows and more.

You also pick the Record ownership: User or team (rows have an owner, so security roles can limit who sees what), Organization (everyone with access sees all rows), or Filtered. You can’t change ownership after the table is created.

The Sample Table We’ll Build

We’ll build an Asset table in our Power Platform developer environment. Every method below creates this same shape. Here are its columns:

Column	Data type	Notes
Asset Name	Text (primary column)	Shown in lookups, e.g. Dell Latitude 7450
Asset Tag	Autonumber	ASSET-1000, ASSET-1001 …
Serial Number	Text	DL7450-26A1
Category	Choice	Laptop, Monitor, Printer, Phone, Docking Station
Purchase Date	Date only	01/12/2026
Purchase Price	Currency	$1,349.00
Assigned To	Text	Megan Bowen
In Service	Yes/no	Default Yes

One tricky row is in there on purpose: the Surface Dock 2 assigned to Lee Gu is set to In Service = No, so you can test filters later.

Method 1: Create a Table with Advanced Properties (Recommended)

Use this when you want control over the schema name, table type and ownership. These are settings you can’t fix after saving. You need the System Customizer role (or more) in an environment with Dataverse.

Here are the steps:

1. Go to make.powerapps.com and pick your environment at the top right.
2. Select Tables in the left pane.
3. On the command bar, open New table and select Table (advanced properties).

The New table panel opens on the Properties tab. Type Asset in Display name and Power Apps fills Plural name with Assets for you. Add a description if you like.

Now expand Advanced options. Leave Type on Standard and pick the Record ownership you need. Then switch to the Primary column tab and rename the default Name to Asset Name.

Select Save. Ours took about 30 to 40 seconds with a Saving spinner. The table page then shows Type Standard and Primary column Asset Name.

How does this work?

The schema name is the internal name that flows and code use. Ours came out as cr85a_asset, and the primary column as cr85a_assetname.

The cr85a_ part is the customization prefix of the solution publisher. You can edit the rest of the schema name before saving, but never after.

The primary column matters because lookups show it. When another table points to an asset, people see “Dell Latitude 7450”, not a GUID.

Add Columns and Rows to the New Table

On the table page, select + in the Asset columns and data grid. The New column panel asks for Display name and Data type, which defaults to Single line of text. Open the Data type list to see every type:

Text, Number, Date and time, Lookup and Choice open submenus. Typing “Auto” in the search box leaves only Autonumber. For choice columns in depth, see how to use Dataverse choices in Power Apps.

For Asset Tag, we picked Autonumber, set Autonumber type to Custom, seed value 1000, and this format:

ASSET-{SEQNUM:4}

The preview showed ASSET-1000, ASSET-1001 and ASSET-1002. The prefix types and their gotchas are in our guide to Dataverse autonumber and the primary name column.

Then we added Serial Number (text), Category (choice), Purchase Date (date only), Purchase Price (currency), Assigned To (text) and In Service (Yes/no, default Yes). A currency column also gets a matching “(Base)” column for the base currency amount.

Finally, the rows. We added five assets and left Asset Tag blank, so Dataverse filled it in. To add rows from an app instead, follow adding data to a Dataverse table from Power Apps.

Pro Tip: Autonumber cells are read-only in the grid. If you need a specific value, set it from a flow or app; a supplied value is kept as-is.

Method 2: Create a Dataverse Table with Copilot

Use Copilot when you want a quick draft and you’ll tidy it up later. On the Tables page, select Get started with Copilot, which is the first of four tiles:

Then describe the table in plain English and select Generate. Here’s the prompt we used:

Create a table to store employee records with Full Name, Email, Department, Joining Date, and Manager.

Copilot draws the table in the data workspace. Keep chatting to change it, then select Save and exit.

How does this work?

Copilot reads your nouns as columns and guesses a data type for each. Joining Date becomes a date column and Email gets the email format.

So here’s the catch: the data workspace can’t create Autonumber, Formula, Rich text or Customer columns. Add those afterward from the table’s Columns page. Copilot must also be turned on for the environment.

The Start with a blank table tile opens the same designer without Copilot. It’s the visual Dataverse table designer, where you add columns and rows on one canvas.

Method 3: Create a Table from Excel, CSV or a SharePoint List

Already have the data? The Create with Excel or .CSV file tile builds the table and loads the rows in one pass. Our step-by-step guide covers it: create a Dataverse table from Excel or CSV.

Power Apps previews only the first 20 rows. The rest load after you save, so don’t panic if the preview looks short.

The Create with SharePoint list (PREVIEW) tile does the same from a list. Managed metadata, image and attachment columns don’t come across. Walk through it in creating a Dataverse table from a SharePoint list.

Need to load rows into a table that already exists? Use our Power Automate flow that imports a CSV into Dataverse.

Can You Duplicate a Dataverse Table?

Not with one click. The Tables command bar has New table, Import, Export and Analyze, and none of them copy a table. Here are your options:

• Same environment: create a new table and re-add the columns. The schema name must be different anyway.
• Another environment: add the table to a solution, export it, and import it there. Solutions carry the table design.
• The rows: move them separately, for example by exporting to Excel and importing again.

For the rows, see how to export a Dataverse table to Excel.

Which Method Should You Use?

Method	Best when	Watch out for
Table (advanced properties)	You need the right type, ownership and schema name	Settings you can’t change later
Copilot	You want a fast first draft	No Autonumber or Formula columns
Excel or .CSV file	The data already lives in a spreadsheet	Preview shows only 20 rows
SharePoint list (preview)	You’re moving a list to Dataverse	Some column types are skipped

For a production app, I start with Method 1 and add data afterward. More guides are on our Power Apps tutorials hub.

Things to Keep in Mind

• Ownership is permanent. Pick User or team if rows need owners; otherwise you’ll delete and re-create the table.
• The prefix comes from the publisher. Create tables inside your own solution if you don’t want the default prefix.
• Saving takes a moment. Wait for the Saving spinner to finish before adding columns.
• Image and file data need their own column types. See how to create a Dataverse file column.
• Display names can change; schema names can’t. Name tables in the singular, like Asset.

Once your table is ready, these are the next things we’d build:

• How to Create Dataverse View [With Examples]
• Dataverse Formula Column: Complete Guide [With Real Examples]
• Dataverse Version History
• How to get data from Dataverse in Power Apps

Frequently Asked Questions