Update and delete entities using the Web API

02/16/2021
2 minutes to read

Note

Effective November 2020:

Common Data Service has been renamed to Microsoft Dataverse. Learn more
Some terminology in Microsoft Dataverse has been updated. For example, entity is now table and field is now column. Learn more

This article will be updated soon to reflect the latest terminology.

Operations to modify data are a core part of the Web API. In addition to a simple update and delete, you can perform operations on single attributes and compose upsert requests that will either update or insert data depending on whether it exists.

Basic update

Update operations use the HTTP PATCH verb. Pass a JSON object containing the properties you want to update to the URI that represents the entity. A response with a status of 204 will be returned if the update is successful.

The If-Match: * header helps ensure you don't create a new record by accidentally performing an upsert operation. More information: Prevent create in upsert.

Important

When updating an entity, only include the properties you are changing in the request body. Simply updating the properties of an entity that you previously retrieved, and including that JSON in your request, will update each property even though the value is the same. This can cause system events that can trigger business logic that expects that the values have changed. This can cause properties to appear to have been updated in auditing data when in fact they haven’t actually changed.

Note

The metadata for attributes includes a RequiredLevel property. When this is set to SystemRequired, you cannot set these attributes to a null value. More information: Attribute requirement level

This example updates an existing account record with the accountid value of 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001.

Request

PATCH [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.0/accounts(00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001) HTTP/1.1  
Content-Type: application/json  
OData-MaxVersion: 4.0  
OData-Version: 4.0
If-Match: *  
  
{  
    "name": "Updated Sample Account ",  
    "creditonhold": true,  
    "address1_latitude": 47.639583,  
    "description": "This is the updated description of the sample account",  
    "revenue": 6000000,  
    "accountcategorycode": 2  
}

Response

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content  
OData-Version: 4.0

Note

See Associate entities on update for information about associating entities on update.

Update with data returned

To retrieve data from an entity you are updating you can compose your PATCH request so that data from the created record will be returned with a status of 200 (OK). To get this result, you must use the return=representation preference in the request headers.

To control which properties are returned, append the $select query option to the URL to the entity set. The $expand query option will be ignored if used.

This example updates an account entity and returns the requested data in the response.

Request

PATCH [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.0/accounts(00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001)?$select=name,creditonhold,address1_latitude,description,revenue,accountcategorycode,createdon HTTP/1.1  
OData-MaxVersion: 4.0  
OData-Version: 4.0  
Accept: application/json  
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8  
Prefer: return=representation
If-Match: * 
  
{"name":"Updated Sample Account"}

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK  
Content-Type: application/json; odata.metadata=minimal  
Preference-Applied: return=representation  
OData-Version: 4.0  
  
{  
    "@odata.context": "[Organization URI]/api/data/v9.0/$metadata#accounts/$entity",  
    "@odata.etag": "W/\"536537\"",  
    "accountid": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001",  
    "accountcategorycode": 1,  
    "description": "This is the description of the sample account",  
    "address1_latitude": 47.63958,  
    "creditonhold": false,  
    "name": "Updated Sample Account",  
    "createdon": "2016-09-28T23:14:00Z",  
    "revenue": 5000000.0000,  
    "_transactioncurrencyid_value": "048dddaa-6f7f-e611-80d3-00155db5e0b6"  
}

Update a single property value

When you want to update only a single property value use a PUT request with the property name appended to the Uri of the entity.

The following example updates the name property of an existing account entity with the accountid value of 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001.

Request

PUT [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.0/accounts(00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001)/name HTTP/1.1  
Content-Type: application/json  
OData-MaxVersion: 4.0  
OData-Version: 4.0  
  
{"value": "Updated Sample Account Name"}

Response

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content  
OData-Version: 4.0

Delete a single property value

To delete the value of a single property use a DELETE request with the property name appended to the Uri of the entity.

The following example deletes the value of the description property of an account entity with the accountid value of 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001.

Request

DELETE [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.0/accounts(00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001)/description HTTP/1.1  
Content-Type: application/json  
OData-MaxVersion: 4.0  
OData-Version: 4.0

Response

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content  
OData-Version: 4.0

Note

This can’t be used with a single-valued navigation property to disassociate two entities. For an alternative approach, see Remove a reference to an entity.

Upsert an entity

An upsert operation is exactly like an update. It uses a PATCH request and uses a URI to reference a specific entity. The difference is that if the entity doesn’t exist it will be created. If it already exists, it will be updated. Normally when creating a new entity you will let the system assign a unique identifier. This is a best practice. But if you need to create a record with a specific id value, an upsert operation provides a way to do this. This can be valuable in situation where you are synchronizing data in different systems.

Sometimes there are situations where you want to perform an upsert, but you want to prevent one of the potential default actions: either create or update. You can accomplish this through the addition of If-Match or If-None-Match headers. For more information, see Limit upsert operations.

Basic delete

A delete operation is very straightforward. Use the DELETE verb with the URI of the entity you want to delete. This example message deletes an account entity with the primary key accountid value equal to 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001.

Request

DELETE [Organization URI]/api/data/v9.0/accounts(00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001) HTTP/1.1  
Content-Type: application/json  
OData-MaxVersion: 4.0  
OData-Version: 4.0

Response

If the entity exists, you’ll get a normal response with status 204 to indicate the delete was successful. If the entity isn’t found, you’ll get a response with status 404.

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content  
OData-Version: 4.0

Check for Duplicate records

See Detect duplicates during Update operation using the Web API for more information on how to check for duplicate records during Update operation.

Update and delete entities using the Web API

Basic update

Update with data returned

Update a single property value

Delete a single property value

Upsert an entity

Basic delete

Check for Duplicate records

See also

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