dvload — Excel to Dataverse (Power Platform ToolBox tool)

The dvload mapping UI as a Power Platform ToolBox tool: pick an .xlsx / .csv / .tsv, map its columns to a Dataverse table, and run the import against the ToolBox's active connection — no sign-in, no sidecar, no install beyond the tool itself.

It is the same interface and the same engine as the Excel add-in and the browser UI (dvload gui). Mappings are portable both ways: save a .dvmap.json here and run it nightly with the dvload CLI, or open one built elsewhere.

What's different inside the ToolBox

The ToolBox deliberately never hands tools an access token: every Dataverse call crosses its dataverseAPI bridge. dvload's engine runs on a gateway adapter over that bridge (packages/addin/src/pptb/pptb-client.ts), which changes a few things:

• No account/environment steps. The ToolBox connection decides both; the bar at the bottom of the pane shows where records will land. Switching the connection reloads the tool.
• $batch is emulated. Operations run individually through the bridge (the engine's per-row accounting semantics are preserved — core already isolates every operation in its own changeset). Expect large loads to be slower than the add-in/CLI, which use real $batch.
• Upserts are emulated (probe, then update-or-create), so they are not atomic: a record created by someone else between probe and write surfaces as a per-row error rather than being overwritten.
• Not supported here (use the Excel add-in or the CLI):
  • Bypass plugins / Run as user — per-request headers can't cross the bridge.
  • Alternate-key creation in "create table from source" — the table and columns are created; add the key in Power Apps (Table → Keys).
• Sync mode caveat: removing missing records lists the whole target table. Paging past 5,000 rows depends on the bridge passing @odata.nextLink through queryData; a truncated listing makes sync remove fewer records than it should (never more). Verify against your ToolBox version before relying on sync for tables that size.
• Reading the open workbook and Power Query extraction are Excel-only, as in the browser UI. "Add files…" covers both.

Dataflow import works fully: the conversion runs in-page through the bridge instead of through dvload serve.

Build

npm install            # from the repo root
npm run build --workspace=@dvload/pptb

dist/ is the complete tool package: index.html, the bundle, icon.svg, and a package.json generated from tool.package.json (the PPTB manifest — displayName, icon, features.minAPI).

Try it locally

1. Power Platform ToolBox → Settings → enable Show Debug Menu.
2. Debug in the sidebar → Load Local Tool → Browse to this package's own folder (packages/pptb) → Load Tool.
3. Pick a connection, open the tool. After a rebuild, close and reopen the tool tab.

The loader wants a tool project, not the built output: it reads <folder>/package.json and <folder>/dist/index.html, and refuses anything else ("No dist/index.html found" / "No package.json found"). So always pick the folder that contains dist/ — never dist/ itself.

That contract is why the published package cannot be loaded as it comes: the npm package root is the dist content. To test what actually shipped, install it outside this repo — inside it, npm resolves the name to the workspace and you would be testing your own source — and rebuild the project shape around it:

mkdir pptb-verify; cd pptb-verify; npm init -y; npm i @dvload/pptb
mkdir published\dist
xcopy node_modules\@dvload\pptb published\dist /s /e /y
copy published\dist\package.json published\package.json

Then load pptb-verify\published. Verified against the published 0.2.0.

Publish

The published artifact is dist/, not this workspace package (this package.json is only the build harness, and it is private).

npm run build --workspace=@dvload/pptb
cd packages/pptb/dist
npm publish --access public

Then submit it to the ToolBox registry via the Tool Submission Form on powerplatformtoolbox.com (npm package name, display name, description, repo URL, tags). Before first publish, check the npm scope in tool.package.json — @dvload must be a scope you own, or rename.