Import troubleshooting

There are two things you must do to make this work:

• Use automatic mapping, not a data map.

  If you try to use a data map, you will get an error "The source data is not in the required format." To use automatic mapping, your source column names must match the display names of the attributes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

  To avoid running into this problem, when you create a data map, do not map any of your source columns to a target Microsoft Dynamics CRM attribute that is marked with the Lookup icon.

• In the column that you use to create the lookup, such as the Parent Customer column in the Contact record type, use the exact value in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. For example, if you already have an account named "A Bike Store," the following contacts.csv file could be used to import two contacts with this account as a parent customer:

  First Name,Last Name,Parent Customer

  Alan,Brewer,A Bike Store

  Ann,Beebe,A Bike Store

  Important

  The value used to create the lookup must be unique. For example, if there are two accounts with the name "A Bike Store", the records will not be imported.

Review the values in your source records:

• If the values exactly match valid values in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can use automatic mapping. If the values are different, use one of the following procedures:
  • Create a data map that maps each unique value in the source file to a valid Microsoft Dynamics CRM value.
  • Do a find-and-replace in your source file and then replace each value that isn't valid in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, with one that is. This avoids the need to do list-value mapping in the data map.
  • Customize the drop-down list attribute in Microsoft Dynamics CRM by adding each unique value in your source file. This task requires privileges typically associated with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM System Customizer or System Administrator security role.
• Make sure the values used in your source file use consistent capitalization. For example, do not include values for the Rating attribute in leads as Warm and warm. If the source-file values differ just by case, importing records with either variant might fail.

You cannot do this using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. However, there is a tool available for download that lets you export and enrich data. Tool to Update MSCRM 4.0 Data Inline and Export to CSV for Re-import

No. Your source files can contain only Unicode text. However, the files cannot contain the ASCII control sequences (first 19 ASCII characters) such as:

• Null
• Line feed
• Carriage return

The most common cause of special characters is a source system that stores multiple lines of data in one attribute, and uses a line-feed or carriage-return character in the middle of the attribute. For example, your source system might store the entire address, including the street address and city in one line, using a line feed between the street address, and city, so that it appears correctly in the source application. When this data is exported to Microsoft Office Excel or to a comma-separated values (.csv) file, the line feed is included.

Control characters typically look like small rectangles when viewed in Notepad or Microsoft Office Word, and as a question mark in a box when viewed in Excel. They are hard to remove in Excel and Word, as you cannot search for them. To thoroughly check your files, you will need to use a tool such as a hex editor to search for, and remove, control codes in the output. Hex editors are available for free download from many Web sites. In the hex-editor output, look in the hexadecimal output for 0A (line feed), 0D (carriage return), and 00 (null), and remove them.

For a complete list of control codes, see ASCII Control Codes.

Since importing records is processed as a background job, it requires the Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server. If this service is not started, you will see a status of Waiting or Waiting for Resources for your import.

Checking and restarting a service can be done only by a person in the local Administrators group on the server.

Check if the Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service is started:

• On the server, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
• If the Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service is not running, double-click the service, click Start, and then click OK.

For records that reference another record, such as a contact with a Parent Customer, when the record is imported, there are two steps. First the record is created, and then the reference data in the record is updated. Only when both steps succeed is the record marked to show up in the Success area. If the first step succeeds, but the second step fails, the record will show up as failing to import, even though it exists in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

No. You must use automatic mapping if your source data includes references to records that already exist in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. If you try to use a data map, you will get the error "The source data is not in the required format."

When you create a data map, lookup attributes are included in the list of target Microsoft Dynamics CRM attributes that can be mapped. These attributes are marked with the Lookup icon. Do not map a column heading to a target attribute with this icon.

Instead, see the first question in the Preparing your source data section at the beginning of this article, "How do I import data that includes references to records that already exist in Microsoft Dynamics CRM such as contacts with a Parent Customer?" for a description of how to do this task using automatic mapping.

If your data map names contains characters other than English characters, it cannot be exported. There may be a hotfix available to fix this problem. To get this hotfix, you need to go to Microsoft Help and Support: Dynamics CRM 4.0 Solution Center.