#PowerPlatformTip 52: 'DV4T: Budget-Friendly Choice'

TL;DR: Dataverse for Teams (DV4T) was the budget pick: relational tables inside Teams, covered by Microsoft 365 licenses. Microsoft has deprecated it. From November 15, 2026 no new DV4T environments can be created, and environments that aren’t upgraded to Dataverse are decommissioned on October 30, 2027. Upgrade the ones you need, and plan the Power Apps and Power Automate licenses that the upgrade requires.

💡 Challenge

When building Power Apps and Power Automate solutions, choosing the right data storage is crucial. If you want to avoid premium licensing costs but still need a relational option, SharePoint lists quickly reach their limits. For a long time, Dataverse for Teams was the answer. Now it’s being retired, and existing DV4T apps need a decision.

✅ Solution

What DV4T offered, and why it was the budget-friendly choice:

🔸 Included in Microsoft 365: select Microsoft 365 subscriptions with Power Platform and Teams capabilities included DV4T. No extra Power Apps license for apps used inside Teams.

🔸 Relational data: real tables with relationships and data types, instead of lists with lookup columns.

🔸 Upgrade path: a DV4T environment can be upgraded to a full Dataverse environment.

What changes now: the upgrade path is the only way to keep a DV4T solution. Use it for every DV4T environment you still need, and don’t start new solutions on DV4T.

🔧 How It’s Done

1. Find your DV4T environments.

🔸 In the Power Platform admin center go to Manage → Environments and filter the list where Type is Microsoft Teams. The Last activity column shows which environments are still in use.

2. Decide per environment.

🔸 Still needed: upgrade it to Dataverse before October 30, 2027.

🔸 Not needed: no action required. It is decommissioned on October 30, 2027, together with its apps, flows, agents and data.

3. Check capacity and licenses before the upgrade.

🔸 The tenant needs at least as much free Dataverse capacity as the environment uses. After the upgrade, the environment counts toward the tenant’s Dataverse capacity.

🔸 After the upgrade, apps, flows and agents in the environment require Power Apps, Power Automate or Copilot Studio licenses. This is where the budget advantage of DV4T ends.

4. Upgrade and inform the team owners.

🔸 In the admin center select the environment and Upgrade to production. After the upgrade, makers find and edit their apps and flows in Power Apps and Power Automate, and the apps can still be used in Teams.

🎉 Result

Your DV4T apps keep running on full Dataverse, with the same tables and data, and no app disappears on October 30, 2027 by surprise. New solutions start on a platform that will stay.

🌟 Key Advantages

🔸 No data loss: upgraded environments keep their apps, flows, agents and data.

🔸 More capabilities after the upgrade: DV4T was limited to 2 GB of storage per environment, had no direct API access, and didn’t support custom connectors, desktop flows or AI Builder. Full Dataverse has none of these limits.

🔸 Still in Teams: apps, flows and agents built on Dataverse can be added to Microsoft Teams.

⚠️ Good to Know

🔸 Suspension comes first: the deprecation runs in three phases: no new environments, suspension of environments that aren’t upgraded, decommissioning on October 30, 2027. A suspended environment’s apps and flows stop working, so upgrade the environments you need early. The phases are listed on Microsoft’s page Important changes (deprecations) coming in Power Platform.

🔸 Limits of DV4T until the upgrade: each DV4T environment provides 2 GB of combined database and file storage, part of it reserved for the system. Guests can run the apps in their team, but can’t create or edit apps.

🔸 Budget alternative without premium: if licenses are the main concern, SharePoint lists with standard connectors remain the low-cost option for simple data. For relational data, security roles and growth, plan full Dataverse with licenses.

🛠️ FAQ

1. What are the storage limitations of Dataverse for Teams compared to full Dataverse?

Each DV4T environment provides 2 GB of combined database and file storage, with a portion reserved for system use. DV4T capacity comes from a separate pool and doesn’t count toward the tenant’s Dataverse capacity until you upgrade.

2. Can I still create a new Dataverse for Teams environment?

Until November 15, 2026. After that date, creating a first app, flow or agent in a team or installing a DV4T app from the Teams app catalog no longer creates a DV4T environment.

3. What happens to my Dataverse for Teams data if I upgrade to full Dataverse?

The environment keeps its apps, flows, agents and data, and gets the full Dataverse capabilities. Its storage then counts toward your tenant’s Dataverse capacity, and users need Power Platform licenses for the apps and flows.

🔗 Related Tips

🔸 #PowerPlatformTip 151: ‘Manage SharePoint Lists with Dataverse Virtual Tables’ - a middle path when you want Dataverse’s model without migrating SharePoint data at all.

🔸 #PowerPlatformTip 41: ‘Standard tables in Dataverse’ - reuse built-in tables once you’ve made the move to full Dataverse.