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Anonymous
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Flow to list records from a Many to Many relationship

Hi All,


I have 2 tables regGroups and regPeople. They are related to each other in a Many to Many (NN) relationship.

 

I'm trying to create a scheduled flow to extract the related information for each group (regGroup.regPeople) to a separate table (with regGroup and regPerson columns) but just can't figure it out.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

 

Many thanks,

 

Jim

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @dpoggemann , many thanks

 

I was able to access the NN records using the set suffix approach described in the linked post using the Dataverse connector instead.

 

From make.powerapps.com, I selected Data > Tables > and then the table name and under Relationships relationship table name e.g. XXX_reggroup_regperson

 

In the Flow, I created a Dataverse List rows action and set the Table name to XXX_regroup_regpersonset. It is necessary to add the set suffix to the table name. I also set 'Select columns' to XXX_reggroupid, XXX_regpersonid to improve performance.

 

I then added an 'Apply to each' action and set the output to the dynamic value (from the previous step).

 

Finally I added A DataVerse 'Add a new row' action to the 'Apply to each' action, selected the target table xxxMemberships as the table name, set regGroups to xxx_reggroupid (dynamic field from the previous step), and set regPerson to xxx_regpersonid.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE RE LOOKUP FIELDS: -

As these were lookup fields I had to then wrap each field with the name of the tables on the lookup /xxx_reggroups() and xxx_regpersons() respectively so it looked like: -

 

/xxx_reggroups(xxx_reggroupid)

/xxx_regpersons(xxx_regpersonid)

 

IMPORTANT GOTCHA: The DataVerse connector does not respect plural naming conventions! my xxxPerson table's plural table name is actually xxxPeople but that throws a 'Resource not found for the segment' error. I had to use xxxpersons LOL!

 

Done, all now working!

 

You may be right about creating a relationship table and indeed I had tried this approach but found it added complexity and performance issues managing the relationship metadata so I wanted to compare to letting the system manage the relationship for me and use flow to create a daily membership table from the related data to hold pertinent registration meta data.

 

I hope this helps others and thanks again for putting me on the right track,

 

Cheers, Jim

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3 REPLIES 3
dpoggemann
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hi @Anonymous,

 

Please take a look at the following post for a user with similar issue working with the N:N relationships (https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Lookup-related-Many-to-Many-N-N-records-using-Flow/td-p/321147

 

Overall I personally don't like working with "N:N" relationships unless I have to.  I know sometimes it makes sense but I am unable to add metadata in this relationship since Microsoft is maintaining the table behind the scenes.  I usually recommend creating a table in the middle so you have a 1:N relationship on both sides.

 

Example:

regGroup --- 1:N --->   regGroupPeople <--- N:1 --- regPeople

 

This way you can add fields to the regGroupPeople to more identify this relationship and it really simplifies working with the data in forms / views / integrations with flow, etc.   Almost looks like you were trying to create this with the flow you are building.  I would explicitly create it in the Dataverse and maintain in this fashion.

 

Hope this helps.  Please accept if answers your question or Like if helps in any way.

 

Thanks,


Drew

Hope this helps. Please accept if answers your question or Like if helps in any way.
Thanks,
Drew
Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @dpoggemann , many thanks

 

I was able to access the NN records using the set suffix approach described in the linked post using the Dataverse connector instead.

 

From make.powerapps.com, I selected Data > Tables > and then the table name and under Relationships relationship table name e.g. XXX_reggroup_regperson

 

In the Flow, I created a Dataverse List rows action and set the Table name to XXX_regroup_regpersonset. It is necessary to add the set suffix to the table name. I also set 'Select columns' to XXX_reggroupid, XXX_regpersonid to improve performance.

 

I then added an 'Apply to each' action and set the output to the dynamic value (from the previous step).

 

Finally I added A DataVerse 'Add a new row' action to the 'Apply to each' action, selected the target table xxxMemberships as the table name, set regGroups to xxx_reggroupid (dynamic field from the previous step), and set regPerson to xxx_regpersonid.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE RE LOOKUP FIELDS: -

As these were lookup fields I had to then wrap each field with the name of the tables on the lookup /xxx_reggroups() and xxx_regpersons() respectively so it looked like: -

 

/xxx_reggroups(xxx_reggroupid)

/xxx_regpersons(xxx_regpersonid)

 

IMPORTANT GOTCHA: The DataVerse connector does not respect plural naming conventions! my xxxPerson table's plural table name is actually xxxPeople but that throws a 'Resource not found for the segment' error. I had to use xxxpersons LOL!

 

Done, all now working!

 

You may be right about creating a relationship table and indeed I had tried this approach but found it added complexity and performance issues managing the relationship metadata so I wanted to compare to letting the system manage the relationship for me and use flow to create a daily membership table from the related data to hold pertinent registration meta data.

 

I hope this helps others and thanks again for putting me on the right track,

 

Cheers, Jim

When creating the flow, what is the trigger?

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