Forms, from the last chapter, are how you see and edit one record at a time. A view is different — it's how you see many records at once, as a filtered, sorted list. Open the Contacts area and see a table of rows, and you're not looking at "all the data" raw — you're looking through a view.
- A view is a saved definition — columns, filters, sort order — not a copy of the data
- System views are shared, built by admins or customizers
- Personal views are private by default, saved by one user for their own use
- Editing a view never changes the underlying records
A view is a saved search, not the data itself
Think of a saved search on a shopping site, or a smart playlist in a music app. A smart playlist doesn't hold its own copy of your songs — it's a set of rules ("songs tagged 'Workout', sorted by tempo") pointed at your library. Retag a song and it can appear or vanish from that playlist automatically, even though you never touched the playlist.
A Dataverse view works the same way: a saved definition — which columns to show, what filters to apply, what order to sort by — pointed at a table's records. Editing a view never changes the underlying records; it only changes the window you're looking through.
System views vs. personal views
Views come in two flavors, distinguished by who owns them and who can see them:
| Type | Who creates it | Who can use it |
|---|---|---|
| System view | An admin or customizer, as part of the table's setup | Shared — available to everyone with access to the table |
| Personal view | An individual user, saved for their own use | Private by default — just that one user, unless shared |
System views are the built-in, shared lists you see by default — "Active Contacts," "My Active Accounts," and similar ones shipped with the table or added by a customizer. Personal views are what an individual builds for their own workflow — say, a salesperson's view of just their own open Opportunities, sorted by expected close date.
What a view actually controls
Every view controls three things at once:
- Columns — which fields appear in the list (Phone and Email in one view, Owner and Territory in another)
- Filter criteria — which records show up at all
- Sort order — the order results appear in
Change any one of those three and you've effectively created a different lens on the same data — which is exactly why a table normally has many views, built for different audiences and jobs.