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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / Alternate keys
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Alternate keys

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Posted on by tpeschat 4,926

Hi.

I am thinking of defining alternate keys for my CRM entities, where I import data from our DWH to prevent creation of potential duplicates in CRM.

But for some entities I have imported data, where such an alternate key would exist, but also have records entered by users where the alternate key would be null.

I didn't find in the documentation, weither alternate keys are allowed to be null and weither multiple records with an alternate key of null can be created.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

thx Thomas

*This post is locked for comments

  • rath.amit38@gmail.com Profile Picture
    rath.amit38@gmail.com on at
    RE: Alternate keys

    Hi,

    Please refer the below links:

    community.dynamics.com/.../define-alternate-keys-for-an-entity

    community.dynamics.com/.../how-alternate-key-is-useful-while-importing-data-into-crm

    Thanks

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member Microsoft Employee on at
    RE: Alternate keys

    Hi Jason,

    Does this mean Dynamics 365 ignore NULL value as alternate key?

    How about if I have a custom entity and 3 attributes.

    The entity name is "Bank Account"

    attribute 1 = "Bank Account ID" --> as Primary Field

    attribute 2 = "Dimension 1"

    attribute 3 = "Dimension 2"

    Then I set "Dimension 1" and "Dimension 2" as alternate key.

    What if, "Dimension 1" and "Dimension 2" is not mandatory but I want to keep these two attributes as unique.

    Because at this time, if "Dimension 1" or "Dimension 2" fill in with blank value, we can save it

    Thanks

    Dafid Margetha

  • tpeschat Profile Picture
    tpeschat 4,926 on at
    RE: Alternate keys

    thx a lot

  • Verified answer
    jlattimer Profile Picture
    jlattimer 24,558 on at
    RE: Alternate keys

    Yes, alternate keys can be null and there can be multiple with null values. You'd only see an error if the value that was entered was duplicated.

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