Configuring parent–child behaviour in Microsoft Dataverse is a critical step in building reliable, predictable, and secure data models across your Power Platform solutions. Dataverse includes built-in behaviour controls that determine how child records respond when a parent record is deleted, reassigned, shared, unshared, or reparented. This guide takes you through the process to configure these behaviours correctly without using any plugins or custom code. These steps help you maintain data integrity, support lifecycle management, and align your models with real-world business processes using built in Dataverse relationship models.
Understanding Parent–Child Behaviour in Dataverse
Key behaviour types available in Dataverse and prepares you to choose the correct configuration before making changes. The aim is to help you understand what happens to child records when the parent is acted upon. The behaviour settings control how deletion, reassignment, sharing, and reparenting cascade from a parent to related children.
- Step 1: Identify the two tables involved in your model and confirm which is the parent and which is the child.
- Step 2: Review the business process to understand what should happen to the child record when the parent is modified or deleted.
- Step 3: Decide how important child record preservation or inheritance is for your scenario.
- Step 4: Based on the business requirement, select a behaviour type to configure in the next section.
Applying Parental Behaviour
- Open make.powerapps.com and select the correct environment.
- Navigate to Tables and choose the table that will be the parent.
- Select the Relationships tab and locate the relevant 1:N relationship.
- Open the relationship and scroll to the Advanced options section.
- Change the Behaviour setting to Parental.
- Review the automatically populated cascade options for delete, assign, share, unshare, and reparent.
- Click Save and Publish to apply the configuration.
Applying Referential Behaviour
Referential behaviour allows the child to exist independently from the parent. Use this configuration when child records must remain available, even when the parent record is deleted or reassigned. Follow these steps to configure referential behaviour.
- Go to make.powerapps.com and select your environment.
- Open the parent table and view its list of relationships.
- Select the 1:N relationship you want to update.
- Open Advanced options within the relationship editor.
- Switch the Behaviour type to Referential.
- Confirm that cascading delete and assign options are set to No Cascade.
- Save and Publish your changes.
Applying Restrict Delete Behaviour
Referential Restrict Delete is used when the parent should not be removable while child records still exist. This behaviour helps enforce strict data governance, particularly in financial, legal, or audit-based applications.
- Open the Maker Portal and navigate to the relevant parent table.
- Locate and open the relevant 1:N relationship.
- Scroll to the Behaviour section in Advanced options.
- Select Referential, Restrict Delete as the behaviour type.
- Verify that the delete option is restricted and not cascading.
- Save and publish the updated configuration.
Configuring Custom Behaviour
Custom behaviour provides full control over individual cascade actions. Use this when you need precise behaviour that does not match the defaults provided by Dataverse. The steps below guide you through configuring custom cascade rules.
- Open the Maker Portal and navigate to your chosen table.
- Select Relationships and choose the 1:N link to configure.
- Open Advanced options and change Behaviour to Custom.
- Adjust the Delete action to either Cascade All, No Cascade, or Restrict.
- Modify the Assign action to control ownership inheritance.
- Set Share and Unshare behaviours based on data visibility rules.
- Configure Reparent behaviour to determine how lookup changes affect child records.
- Save and Publish your custom configuration.
Cascade Options
This table compares key cascade actions available when configuring Custom behaviour in Dataverse. Use it as a reference when selecting the correct cascade patterns for your data model.
| Feature | Option A (Cascade All) | Option B (No Cascade / Restrict) |
|---|---|---|
| Delete | Parent deletion removes child records | Children remain or deletion is blocked |
| Assign | Child inherits new owner | Child keeps existing owner |
| Share | Sharing applies to children | Only parent is shared |
| Unshare | Child access removed | Child access unchanged |
| Reparent | Children move with lookup change | Children remain under original parent |
Best Practices for Configuring Behaviour
- Always map out how child records should behave before creating the relationship.
- Avoid cascade delete for business-critical or audit-required records.
- Use restrict delete for financial or compliance-driven applications.
- Review behaviour settings annually to ensure they still match business requirements.
- Test cascade effects using sample records before releasing updates to production.
- Document all behaviour choices for future reference and governance.
