Backend Integration & Batch in Power Platform

Introduction to Backend Integration

Backend integration in Microsoft Power Platform is one of the most strategic aspects for building connected, reliable, and high-performance business solutions. Unlike frontend integration — oriented toward user experience and real-time interactions — backend integration operates behind the scenes, ensuring data exchange between Dataverse and external systems such as ERP, CRM, or custom applications in an asynchronous and controlled manner.

Backend architectures rely on well-established patterns — Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Relay, Publish-Subscribe, and Request-Callback — and leverage Microsoft technologies like Azure Logic Apps, Azure Service Bus, Azure Functions, and API Management. These services help balance workloads, orchestrate processes, and ensure secure transactions.

Alternate Keys

One of the most frequent integration challenges is identifying a Dataverse record uniquely from an external system. Typically, Dataverse APIs require the record GUID, which external systems may not have. To overcome this, you can use alternate keys.

Alternate keys consist of one or more fields configured in Dataverse to uniquely identify a record, such as customer number, product code, or ticket number. This approach allows you to:

• Perform update or delete operations without knowing the GUID;
• Save an additional retrieval request, improving API performance;
• Achieve better semantic alignment between Dataverse and external systems.

A practical example is synchronizing customer data between an ERP and Dataverse, where the “CustomerNumber” field acts as the alternate key. This approach integrates seamlessly with UPSERT operations.

UPSERT Operations: Simplicity and Efficiency

The UPSERT (UPDATE + INSERT) operation is one of the most effective innovations introduced in the Dataverse API. It simplifies integration flows, reducing code complexity and the number of calls. When an external system sends data to Dataverse, UPSERT automatically checks whether the record exists (via GUID or alternate key):

• If the record exists, an UPDATE transaction is executed;
• If the record does not exist, a CREATE transaction is executed.

This mechanism drastically reduces the need for conditional logic in custom code and keeps integration more stable and performant, especially in periodic synchronization or massive import scenarios.

According to best practices presented by Robert Rybaric in Microsoft Power Platform Enterprise Architecture, UPSERT is particularly recommended in automated flows involving data from ERP, CRM, or data warehouse systems.

Batch Requests: Optimizing Performance

To ensure high levels of efficiency and transactional safety, Dataverse allows sending multiple API requests in a single technical call known as a batch request. This feature can package up to 1,000 operations (create, update, delete) in a single logical transaction.

The main benefits include:

• Reduced roundtrips and network latency;
• Consistent transactional management: all operations are executed or rolled back together;
• Lower resource consumption and improved scalability.

A typical use case is data migration from a legacy system into Dataverse, where the entire batch is loaded and validated in a single call, minimizing inconsistency risks.

Combining UPSERT, Alternate Keys, and Batch

The three techniques — alternate keys, UPSERT, and batch — can be combined to build an optimal integration architecture. For example, during a large-scale data migration or synchronization, each record can be identified by an alternate key, processed via UPSERT, and sent in batch blocks.

This approach delivers tangible benefits:

• Higher processing speed;
• Reduced infrastructure costs;
• Improved transactional control;
• Lower risk of data duplication or loss.

In enterprise scenarios, these techniques integrate perfectly with tools like Azure Data Factory, Power Query, and SQL Server Management Studio, providing a consistent ecosystem for data management.