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What are Alternate Keys used for in Dynamics 365 integrations?

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Alternate Keys in Microsoft Dataverse allow organizations to identify records using one or more business-specific columns instead of relying only on the Dataverse-generated primary identifier. They are particularly useful for integrations where an external system already has a unique identifier for a customer, product, account, or other business record. For example, an ERP system might identify a customer using CustomerNumber. An integration can use that business identifier to locate or synchronize the corresponding Dataverse record.
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In Microsoft Dynamics 365 / Dataverse, Alternate Keys allow an external system to identify a record using one or more business columns instead of relying on the Dataverse-generated GUID.

For example, an external ERP system may identify a customer using:

CustomerNumber = CUST-10025

Instead of requiring the integration to know the Dataverse record ID, the integration can use the business key to locate or reference the record.

This is particularly useful for:

  • ERP ↔ Dataverse integrations
  • Data migration
  • Upsert operations
  • External system synchronization
  • Integration scenarios where GUIDs are not available

An alternate key can contain one or multiple columns, provided the combination uniquely identifies a record.

Expert perspective

Alternate Keys are especially valuable in integration architecture because they establish a stable business identity boundary between systems.

For example:

ERP Customer ID → Dataverse Alternate Key → Dataverse Record

However, developers should carefully design uniqueness, null handling, data types, key length, and indexing considerations. Alternate Keys should represent a genuinely stable business identifier rather than simply choosing a convenient field.

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