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Now that I finally got a basic import working with a lookup, I have a deeper question.

I have tables:

Site: Name

Location: Name, Site

Asset: Name, Tag, Site, Location (and much more)

My problem is that the location table has duplicate "Names" because each site can have an office 101...

How do I import the Assets and force the Location lookup to also match the Site?

TIA,

Categories:

Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

Building Power Apps

Hi @MK-02061724-1,

In Dataverse import, lookup matching works only against the target table unless you provide an alternate key or a unique identifier strategy.

Your issue is common:

Site table
- Site Name
Location table
- Location Name
- Site lookup

Problem:Location Name is not unique globally.“Office 101” exists under multiple Sites.

During Asset import, Dataverse tries to resolve Location lookup using only Location Name. That becomes ambiguous.

Best approach:

Create a composite alternate key on Location.

Example:

Location Name
Site

Then import using both values.

Structure your CSV like this:

Asset Name	Site	Location
Laptop A	New York HQ	Office 101
Laptop B	Dallas HQ	Office 101

But this alone is often not enough for standard import wizard lookup resolution.

Better pattern:

Create a calculated/import helper column in Location table.

Example column:LocationKey

Formula or populated value:SiteName & "-" & LocationName

Examples:

NewYorkHQ-Office101
DallasHQ-Office101

Then:

Populate this field for all Location records
Make it an Alternate Key
In Asset CSV use:

Asset Name	LocationKey
Laptop A	NewYorkHQ-Office101

Then map Asset.Location lookup to LocationKey during import.

This is the cleanest import strategy in Dataverse.

Why this works:

Import engine resolves against one unique field
No ambiguity
Faster matching
Easier future integrations
Works well with Power Automate and Dataflows too

If volume is large or recurring:

Use Dataflow Gen2
Use Power Query merge on Site + Location
Resolve Location GUID before insert/upsert into Asset

For enterprise-scale imports, pre-resolving GUIDs is usually the most reliable pattern.

Thank you!
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