Data Deletion options in D365 Finance and Operations

In this blog, we are going to discuss how to bulk delete data from D365 Finance and Operations. There are certain forms in D365 where there is no capability to delete data in bulk, record has to be deleted one by one. There are couple of options in order to delete the records from D365, some of them are listed below:

1. Use flow that will read data from the file (excel) and then use 'Delete' action on Data Entity.
2. Use Data Entities feature "Truncate entity" during data import.
3. If excel add-in is available, use that to delete data and synchronize the changes and it will delete data from form.

Below is an example of the form that does not have "Bulk delete" functionality.

In order to delete data from this form, first of all identify the entity that is used for this form. The entity in this case is "Fixed Product Locations".

Generate the template for this entity by Exporting data for this entity. Once the data / template is downloaded, follow these steps listed below to delete data from D365 Finance and Operations:

• Delete data from the file that we just downloaded. Just leave the header row.

• Under "Data Management workspace" create a data import project
• Make sure "Truncate Data Entity" is set to yes.

• Click import now.
• Wait for Data entity to Succeed. 

• Once succeeded, go back to D365 form and verify the data.

In this example, the data entity not only stored "Fixed locations" for product variants but also for "Products" so if you want to retain the data for products, make sure you do not delete that data from excel OR you will end up deleting data that is valid.

NOTE: Data deletion is always tricky and require detailed impact analysis OR you can get into lot of surprises. Always test data deletion in non-production environment before you try this in production environment.