Choices vs Lookup Tables in Microsoft Dataverse




What is a Lookup and a Choice Column?

New to dataverse? Lets have a look at what is the Lookup and Choice Column first.

Choice Column:

A choice column provides a list of values for users to pick from. They help streamline data entry in turn ensuring clean data. It is based on the options that you set when creating the column.

Lookup Column:

You can use a lookup column to show data from another table. This is commonly referred to as a lookup column. It is based on another table and creates a relation between both of the tables.

 

Differences between Lookup and Choice Columns.

There are both advantages and disadvantages of both columns in certain scenarios.
Lets have a look at them:

Choice Column:

·         1. They lack the flexibility to modify later

·         2.  Hard to hide the choices not in use anymore

·         3. It is an options set

·         4.  Easy to create

 

Lookup Column:

·        1.  It is a relation with another table containing the options

·        2.  It is flexible to modify anytime

·        3.  It takes time and effort

·        4.  You have more control over it

·        5.  It is easier to sort certain data using a lookup column (for Form views and Bi)

 

When to use choice columns?

It depends on how often do you think the set of options for your column will have to be changed.

For Example:

In a Gender Option, It doesn’t need to be changed. You can use choice column for it.

I would suggest using the global choice for Gender as it is reusable across many tables in the database

 

When to use Lookup Columns?

It depends on how often do you think the set of options for your column will have to be changed.

For Example:

In an option set for Payment type for a Payments table. The types of payments can change often. You can occur a need to add a new payment type or you can occur a need to remove a certain option.

In this case a lookup column is preferred as it is easy to modify and add new options in a table.

 

 

 

 


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