Test data, old imports, and records nobody has touched in years all take up storage and get in the way. Deleting them one page at a time is slow. The bulk delete option in the PPA portal lets you choose which records to remove. First, you can review the records you selected. Then Dataverse deletes them in the background.
Before you begin the exercise, make sure your account has the appropriate role and that you’re 100% sure which table you need to delete data from.
Let’s follow the steps and make it happen.
Navigate to https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/
On the left-hand side pane choose Manage, then Environments.
Pick your environment, and from the command bar on the top select Settings
Expand Data management and select Bulk deletion
A new tab will open in your browser, and it will look like the screenshot below
Select + New Job to create a new bulk delete operation.
Then fill in the details below
- Title: Type a title for you bulk delete system job
- Select time: Select the time you want to the system to run the delete job
- Permantent deletion: If you pick this option, it will permanently erase the data, and you can’t get it back. But the job will finish faster.
- Notify me: Add the email addressess separated by commas to send a notification email after the job finish.
- Look for Entity: Displays all resources within that environment. I selected the contacts table since this environment is used for testing.
- Use saved view: You can choose a specific view you created for the table.
- Preview Records: By clicking this button, you can view a preview of the query results that you want to delete.
Next, choose Save or Save and close button.
After saving the task, choose Status Reason, then in the Filter by drop-down, select the Filter that equals “In Progress” and choose Apply.
The bulk deletion process is currently underway.
A few minutes later, update the Status Reason filter to “Succeeded.” You will now see that seven records have been deleted without any failures.
If you regret deleting the data, you can restore it, but you first need to enable the Deleted records feature.
