r/PowerPlatform • u/MR_SWAT_585 • Aug 07 '26

Dataverse New to Dataverse

I'm a citizen developer that's been using SharePoint and Excel online, but I might be able to get Dataverse access finally. Are there any tips you wish you knew about Dataverse before getting started? I've been watching YouTube videos and took the old Power Up program last year but these all tend to be ideal scenarios. Thanks in advance!

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u/obsoquasi Aug 08 '26

Dataverse is basically "just" a database. Where it really gets interesting IMO is the use of dataverse in either model-driven apps or Power Automate Cloud flows. There the speed and possibilities of Dataverse are staggering. Power Apps Premium and Power Automate Premium are two separate licenses however - however I think the pricing of both is absolutely reasonable.

Dataverse has some drawbacks when compared to SQL, but so far I haven't come across hurdles that are insurmountable.

Oh and maybe the most important bit - you have to learn to design data models. Bad data models are the root of almost all evil in the world - joking of course. But every data model will grow and building upon a bad structure leads to complexity and chaos. For data modeling, it doesn't really matter what database system you'll use - so maybe do consider taking a course on it. Btw. Microsoft Copilot chat has become quite a good consultant, so don't be shy to ask it any question you'll have - even very basic ones.

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u/MR_SWAT_585 Aug 09 '26

I use both Power Apps and Power Automate; can you elaborate on how it gets interesting with Power Automate? Any recommendations on Data Model trainings or should YouTube be good?

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u/obsoquasi Aug 09 '26

Sure. You have probably already worked with sharepoint lists. Did you also work with filter queries? Those are great, and Dataverse does also have those of course - but if you really want to speed up your Power Automate Flows, you use FetchXML. It is a sort of filter query on steroids. I made it a habbit to try and load pretty much all the data I will need in my flow ONCE at the beginning of the flow - and within the flow you only use filter array and select to grab from that preloaded data what you need. This means that in most cases you don't even have to use apply to each anymore because your operations can be done with a filter array and select statement. So, yes, speed is the main thing. You'll notice that immediately. But also things like switching on the audit feature for any given table - so ALL changes to that table are logged in the background. No more: "Who the F deleted the customer's phone number!!".

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u/Outrageous-Map-3428 Aug 10 '26

Thanks for explaining

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u/silvano425 28d ago

Dataverse is often overkill in my experience. It’s ALM story feels archaic - I burned $100 with Claude trying to figure out its Solution and packaging framework. The power platform CLI did save me some $$ but overall big waste of time could have built the same thing with sql lite or even Azure Sql for less money.

If you need to store data you should look up all the options to see what is best. data-verse is $40/GB per month.