I have to import data from a foreign system into a CRM instance. The foreign system has an ID for either a contact or account (which is also present in CRM, the common identifier).
I'm wondering if it would be possible to extract that data simply through SQL Management Studio, paste this in an Excel file, upload that file through Data Management and have CRM recognize a certain column (the common identifier) as the key, and update all the other fields that would present in that Excel file I plan to upload.
For example, in said foreign system I have:
ClientID ValueNotPresentInCrm
344555 Bleh
And currently, in CRM, I have
accountid xmr_clientid xmr_ValueNotPresentInCrm
24436EDB-9CFA-E511-80C0-00155D7B5806 344555
Obviously, I want to update the xmr_ValueNotPresentInCrm column.
Is this even possible ?
There are two distinct flavours of Excel upload in CRM.
Create new records.
Update existing records.
You will need to use option 2, this involves downloading an Excel file (actually XML) which contains the existing records, making changes in Excel, uploading the file again.
Its a little long winded but is the simplest solution. PowerObjects has a nice tutorial here.
I would also take a look at the Configuration Migration tool from the SDK. It allows you to specify a uniqueness condition on import (see step 12), which would be particularly useful to your scenario.
There is also an open source, custom tool called the Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover which you also may find useful. It's less relevant to your scenario because it doesn't seem to have an equivalent uniqueness condition feature, but it's still worth noting.
Related
Longtime member, been a while since posting. Working on building out an Extranet and am running into a stupidly frustrating issue. First time using SharePoint Online as document repository for external (anonymous) users. In doing so, using Azure permissoning, have the documents split up in repositories on SharePoint based on access level. On top of that I am attempting to display them in Highlighted Content Web part, I am not able to sort them out by location AND type. I have a custom column in each repository that defines what type they are, but when I try to add the AND portion to the KQL it doesn't work. Additionally the internet seems to be massively void of actual documentation of KQL.
(
path:https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%201%20Resources/
OR
path:https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%202%20Resources/
OR
path:https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%203%20Resources/
OR
path:https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%204%20Resources/
OR
path:https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%205%20Resources/
OR
path:https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%206%20Resources/
AND
DocType:"Articles"
)
The above will simply pull all documents from those locations and ignore the AND statement. I have tried renaming it to call on the custom column identifier pulled from the source, and that doesn't work either.
The only real documentation I can find on this is: Here
Which doesn't appear to address filtering based on custom column tags.
EDIT: Reformatted to pull all docs from multiple locations using below, but the nesting portion still isn't working
path:(
"https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%201%20Resources/"
OR
"https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%202%20Resources/"
OR
"https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%203%20Resources/"
OR
"https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%204%20Resources/"
OR
"https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%205%20Resources/"
OR
"https://domain.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Level%206%20Resources/"
)
So the additional issue I was running into was the creation of a column to separate out based on the category of file type (not literal file type). Apparently SPO doesn't like it when you create a list and then reference that list to then filter by via KQL. So I found this morning this.
Apparently the best way to do this is create a custom "Choice" column, allow some time for it to flow and update, and then you can reference it via KQL.
I have a custom page type for employees, and one of the fields is Location. I want to show/filter only employees in "San Jose" or "San Francisco" and used this WHERE condition below but it didn't work. Apparently, I missed something very basic. Could you help?
Location LIKE '%San%';
I did another test, where instead of page type, I used custom table with the exact field names and was able to filter using the same statement. On a related note, I'm new to Kentico and exploring which is more suitable for creating/maintaining a list of about 100 employees - Page Types or Custom Tables - with the ability to filter by department, location etc. Appreciated your input here as well. Best!
If you're adding the WHERE condition into a standard Kentico repeater or other data source, the syntax looks right except you do not need the semicolon ";".
You'll also want to double check the field name, and if you are limiting your query to certain columns (as is best practice especially for larger data sets) and be sure the field you are filtering on is being selected.
Regarding the management of your employee list, either method you've described will work. In that scenario it typically depends on who will be editing the content, and how frequently. It is more editor-friendly, in my opinion, to add those documents into the content tree. This also gives you quicker control over the order, and keeps it similar to how other content on the site is maintained. I also like to set up folders or other parent page types as categories if needed, so the documents can be dragged and dropped between them and it sets up a visual taxonomy that isn't possible if it's all stored in a table. Storing items in the tree also allows for workflow and versioning, as well as more granular control over permissions/access, if this is important to you.
It's awesome that you are thinking about how to best store your data in advance. There many factors to consider such as overall number of records, number of columns, the fact whether you need to use workflow, versioning, preview etc..
The best source of information regarding this would be this article which summarizes all options you have and gives clear explanations of which to use in which scenario.
And to your original question - What components are you using to display the data? Is the repeater? If so, can you make sure to set the Page types property to match the page type you are displaying? If the page types is not configured, Kentico will not load any custom fields because it doesn't know from which table it should load the data from.
Additionally make sure to either include the "Location" field in the Columns property or leave the columns blank (not recommended because then Kentico loads all columns which is like 200. when you count all from CMS_Document, CMS_Tree etc..)
Below is the framework that I use to debug whenever I wish to add a repeater and is facing some problem.
First get all the columns instead of accessing limited columns. Fetching all columns will make sure that I don't have any problem retrieving data.
If I am missing any particular column information name, then I would double check the column name.
I verify this by firing up SQL server management studio and access data from page type table or custom table.
If access to SQL server is not available(generally in Azure hosted solutions with restrictive access to DB), I would enable SQL debug from the settings and see what query repeater is generating to see if it is correct.
I am working on Notes in MS CRM 2011.
I have many roles over many entities.
I want role based security to notes for any entity records.
let me explain what i want:
Suppose i have an entity namely E1.
Role R1 and R2 has read and write access to E1.
But i want that user having role R2 can only upload and view notes for any record of entity E1.
Hope now my requirement is clear to all of you.
Please suggest me how can i achieve it using MS CRM 2011.
I can think of two ways to do this.
You can create a plugin on create/update of the annotation(note) and check if the note is related to entity E1 and check the roles of the user making the change and see if they only have the R2 role. If that is the case you can throw an InvalidPluginExecutionException with a message like 'You do not have permissions to edit/create these records'.
You can try using role based forms or JS to hide the notes area for R1 users.
You probably want to use a combination of #1 & #2. The users can still access the notes via advanced find and thus will be able to edit those notes. The plugin will prevent that fringe case as well.
*Edit
There are a couple more things that you might be able to deal with the advanced find records. You can remove the annotation entity from advanced find via the unsupported method described here.
Otherwise there is one more thing you can do if you want to prevent those results showing up at all, and you want to stay supported. You can write a plugin on Post-RetrieveMultiple of the annotation entity to strip out the results directly from the return result. There are a couple downsides to this though.
You are executing your plug-in every time the retrieve multiple is called on the entity. So this code will need to be as efficient as possible since that delay will be noticeable by the end user whenever they retrieve these records.
Things like advanced find will display odd results. For example if your paging is set to 50 records and you strip out 10, they will only see 40 records on their page and the total record count will include the records you are stripping out.
Through roles i don't know a way to do that, because you configure the access to notes generic, so applies to all entities. You have to access with Javascript navigating in DOM. Check a example:
document.getElementById("notescontrol").contentWindow.document.getElementById("NotesTable")
You can check this with the help of a develeper tool in your browser.
I am using Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010 with custom document content types and forms. And plan to also use jquery to build the document add/edit/view forms.
I am developing a solution where I want to have a document library where each document uploaded also has a number of external data elements added as metadata.
The tricky part I'm trying to figure out is I want the user to be able to specify and add a multiple number of those same external data elements.
I'm trying to figure out how I represent the data internally in SharePoint. My initial thought is to programmaticly add hidden external fields as the users adds those external selections. But then I also think of simply storing those external elements as non-external text fields but have my own code which performs the external data lookup and validation.
I'm not adverse to significant custom coding, as I'm probably going to need to do a lot anyway since even the user interface is going to be a jquery tabbed form to enable all the external data the user will be able to associate with each SP document.
I've made an attempt to hopefully further explain what I'm trying to do and included that image. Essentially I'm wanting to add 1+ external data relationships to each document, as desired by the user.
It uses just example data. I'll actually have 4-7 different complex relationships much like the example. And the user is permitted to drilldown and select 1, 2 or all 3 of the dropdowns.
Think of it as similar to how here on Experts-Exchange we can add multiple zones to a question.
An example illustration is here: http://flic.kr/p/aFUSJn
Could you simply add a multi-line text column and have the user input the metadata with comma's, then use your code to seperate the data and do what you want with it?
You said you were not adverse to significant custom coding :)
One solution is to use SharePoint content types. The trick is that not all items in a list need to have the same content type.
Therefore, you can do the following:
As the user is selecting the fields he wants to use you generate or select a content type that matchs those fields.
You then add your document to the document list using the content template
You then have all your information strongly typed in SharePoint lists.
We have previously built a system where we generate content types based on xsd files, this worked very well.
I'm developing a customized document library in the SharePoint 2007 environment. What I'm doing is creating a content type with multiple columns of information related to the document. Users will use this content type to upload new documents rather than the standard new document functionality. One of my columns in this content type is proving to be more difficult than I can handle.
The column is essentially supposed to be a sort of 'related documents' column, where it offers the user the option to select another document that is related to this document. So I thought I'll create a lookup column that displays the titles of all other documents in the library and allows the user to choose one. Simple enough, but I need much more functionality than this...and here is where I need help.
I need the related document column to actually link to the related document, not just display the title...not in edit mode while a user is adding a document, just in the standard document library view after the document has been added.
I also need the link to include a url variable that is stored in another column named 'Document Number'.
I assume this will require custom coding which is fine. Please not that I can't use SharePoint Designer. I use Visual Studio and code must be C#. This will be packaged and released as a feature.
Can anyone help me acheive this? Example code, suggestions, etc...? Thanks!
I would suggest using a multi-column field as your base value type - this article on MSDN should get you started. For rendering the field in document library views, you will need to use a rendering pattern. Conveniently, MSDN has an example of a multi-column RenderPattern.