Understanding Dataverse

Microsoft Dataverse (formerly Common Data Service or CDS) can be thought of in similar terms to a database. It is comprised of data objects called entities. Compared to a database, entities can be described in terms of database tables. Whereas database tables have the concept of columns, the corresponding object in an entity is called an attribute.

Microsoft documentation currently has two separate descriptions for the types of objects stored in Dataverse. We covered the new nomenclature in Chapter 1, Introduction to Power Automate. In some cases, however, Dataverse terminology may change, depending on the user interface, protocol, or technologies being used.

One of the biggest terminology changes is the renaming of entity to table. Since table has distinct database implications for this book, we’ll use the old terminology of entity. Many of the UI components that you’ll encounter will still reference Dataverse elements by their...