In Dataverse, a Customer column is a special type of lookup. Unlike a standard lookup, it can reference either an Account or a Contact.

That flexibility is useful, but it can also create problems in Power Automate. If your flow tries to retrieve the related row from the wrong table, the action can fail or return unusable data. The safest approach is to check the Customer type first, then run separate logic depending on whether the value is an Account or a Contact.

In this example, we’ll use a Switch action from the Control connector to handle both possibilities. This pattern is useful any time your flow needs to retrieve details from a Customer lookup, send notifications based on the customer record, or use fields from the related Account or Contact.

Trigger

In this example, we are triggering a flow anytime an Open Lead has a change to the value of Customer. This is our trigger:

Action: Switch

Next, add the Switch action from the Control connector to your flow canvas. You have to configure what to switch on. Do this by using dynamic content and find Customer (Type) from your trigger:

Then, we need to add two Cases to our Switch action:

Configure Case 1 Parameters

Inside the Case 1 Action, define your case (in this example, we will look for Customer Type equals Account).

Now, we can configure additional actions inside of this case. I used the Get row by ID action in the Dataverse connector to pull details of the Account:

Add a second Get row by ID action, which will grab the Owning User of the Account:

Finally, configure an action step to send the email. For this example, I used Send an email (V2) in the Outlook connector. Use dynamic values from the prior two steps (User & Account actions) to personalize the email:

Configure Case 2 Parameters

Now that Case 1 has been configured, it’s time to begin the same process with Case 2. First, we define Customer Type equals contact:

Configure your first action using the Get row by ID action in the Dataverse connector (the same step as above, but using the Contact table):

Repeat a similar second action, using Get row by ID in the Dataverse connector using the Users table:

Finally, configure an email action step using dynamic values in Case 2’s actions:

Final Thoughts

Customer columns in Dataverse are powerful, but because they can point to either an Account or a Contact, your flow needs to know which table it is working with before retrieving related data.

Using a Switch action on the Customer (Type) value gives your flow a clean way to handle each possibility separately. One case manages Accounts, while the other manages Contacts. From there, each branch can retrieve the correct records, use the right dynamic content, and complete the remaining flow steps without lookup-related errors.

This keeps the flow easier to read, easier to troubleshoot, and safer to reuse later.