Migrate portal configuration

Portal development involves several configurations and customizations to achieve a desired experience for portal end users.

After you have completed development or configuration of your portal instance, you might want to migrate your latest portal configuration from development to testing or the production environments. Migration involves exporting the existing configuration from the source Microsoft Dataverse environment, and then importing it into the target Dataverse environment.

To export configuration data, you would need to use the Configuration Migration tool and a portal-specific configuration schema file. For more information about this tool, see Manage configuration data.

Note

We recommend you to use the latest version of the Configuration Migration tool. The Configuration Migration tool can be downloaded from NuGet. More information for downloading the tool: Download tools from NuGet.
The minimum solution version of portals supported by schema files for configuration migration is 8.4.0.275. However, we recommend that you use the latest solution version.
Source and destination organizations must have same default language for the migration to work successfully.

Schema files are available for the following portal types:

Portals created in an environment with Dataverse
- Custom portal (Blank portal)
Portals created in an environment containing customer engagement apps (such as Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service)

The default schema files contain information about portal entities, relationships, and uniqueness definitions for each entity. More information: Export portal configuration data

After exporting the configuration data, you must import it into the target environment. More information: Import portal configuration data

Note

The Configuration Migration tool uses schema to export and import configuration data. The tool does not migrate entities or entity schema. Migration may fail with missing elements such as entities and fields when configuration data has mismatch with selected schema.

During export, ensure the source environment contains portal entities as specified in Configuration Migration tool schema file. You can still alter the schema files to add, remove, and modify entities, attributes, and so on to migrate subset of configuration data.

During import, ensure the destination environment contains the same portal type already installed with any additional customizations such as entities, fields, forms or views imported separately as solutions.

Export portal configuration data

You can export portal configuration data from a source system by using portal-specific configuration schema files.

Download the Configuration Migration tool and extract to the desired folder.
Download a portal configuration schema file using links provided above for your portal type.
Double-click the DataMigrationUtility.exe file in the <your_folder>ToolsConfigurationMigration folder to run the Configuration Migration tool, choose Export data in the main screen, and then select Continue.
On the Login screen, provide authentication details to connect to your Dataverse environment from where you want to export data. If you have multiple organizations on the Dataverse environment from where to export the data, select the Display list of available organizations check box, and then select Login.
If you have multiple organizations, and you had selected the Display list of available organizations check box in the previous step, the next screen allows you to choose the organization that you want to connect to. Select a Dataverse environment to connect to.

Note

If you do not have multiple organizations, this screen is not displayed.
In Schema file, browse and select the portal-specific configuration schema file to be used for the data export.
In Save to data file, specify the name and location of the data file to be exported.
Select Export Data. The screen displays the export progress status and the location of the exported file at the bottom of the screen once the export is complete.
Select Exit to close the tool.

Import portal configuration data

Run the Configuration Migration tool and choose Import data in the main screen, and then select Continue.
On the Login screen, provide authentication details to connect to your Dataverse environment from where you want to export data. If you have multiple organizations on the Dataverse environment from where to export the data, select the Display list of available organizations check box, and then select Login.
If you have multiple organizations, and you had selected the Display list of available organizations check box in the previous step, the next screen allows you to choose the organization that you want to connect to. Select a Dataverse environment to connect to.
Note
- If you do not have multiple organizations, this screen is not displayed.
- Ensure that the portal solution is already installed for the organization where you plan to import the configurations.
The next screen prompts you to provide the data file (.zip) to be imported. Browse to the data file, select it, and then select Import Data.
The next screen displays the import status of your records. The data import is done in multiple passes to first import the foundation data while queuing up the dependent data, and then import the dependent data in the subsequent passes to handle any data dependencies or linkages. This action ensures clean and consistent data import.
Select Exit to close the tool.

Tenant to tenant migration

Power Apps portals doesn't support tenant to tenant migration. To migrate a portal from one tenant to another, you must follow these steps:

Reset your portal in the source tenant.
Provision a new portal in an environment with Dataverse or containing customer engagement apps.
Migrate portal configurations and customizations using the export and import steps explained in this article earlier.