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MS CRM 4.0 CTP3 offered the possibility to enrich data via the Data Management menu. In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 RTM this functionality was removed from the menu, but to my surprise it still works.
The probable reason Microsoft remove this functionality were the risk involved with the usage. (It is possible to screw up your data via enrichment). This risk is still present, and moreover everybody with the rights to import data is able to enrich data.
Although there are risks, I want to share how to enrich your data using Data Management.The easiest way to enrich your data is:

1. Make a nice view in advanced find with one or more columns to identify the records and the columns you want to enrich.
In this example I use the First and the Last Name to identify my Contacts and I want to enrich the Home Phone.

2. Export this view to Microsoft Office Excel and add a column to the left with the name of the entity in the heading. Put the Guids corresponding to the records in this column. And enrich your data.

3. Save your Excel file as CSV (comma delimited) and Create a new Data Import. Select your saved CSV, select Data Delimiter ‘none’ and Field Delimiter ‘Comma (,)’. On the next screen select your entity (in this case Contact).
As you will see at the top of the screen the possibility to ‘Enrich data by updating records rather than creating new records.’ is given.
This was the big surprise:

And the full screen:

4. After clicking a couple of times on the next button and some patience you can open your Advanced Find view to evaluate your results.

5. Next to that, if you open the Import record, you can see that the Contact records are actually updated and not created.

A small addition to this post. I got a lot of questions on how to get the GUIDS. If you want to get the GUID you can make an export directly from the database. This is not really userfriendly, but it works.
Furthermore my article was more to show that the option within the standard application still exists, than to really give my opinion on the best way how to enrich data.

Another (better) option to enrich data is to use a free tool from codeplex: http://mscrmimport.codeplex.com/

Have fun with it, but use it with care.

(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 7)

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During the Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference 2008 the topic of the week was Software + Services.
Software + Services is Microsoft’s answer to the upcoming Saas market.

To put it simple, Microsoft wants to offer their customer the freedom of choice by offering their products in 3 versions, On-premise, Hosted and Online(Saas).
Microsoft claims to offer exactly the same products in 3 version to make hybrid solutions and switching between version very easy.
This sounds nice, but seeing is believing.

Yesterday I read a Microsoft whitepaper about switching between a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online deployment to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-premise deployment.
Basically the steps are requesting a copy of your Online database from Microsoft and redeploying this database On-premise. With the redeployment, you not only move your data, but also your configuration and your workflows.
This really convinced me: their claim is a promise and that they can deliver it !!!

In my opinion Microsoft has got a strong proposition with their Software + Services strategy.

(1 votes, average: 1.00 out of 7)

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Via the Advanced Find it is very easy to query on all kind of things within MS Dynamics CRM. The functionality is great. The only thing is, it does not always give you the right result. This has nothing to do with the Advanced Find functionality but everything with understanding the underlying Microsoft SQL Server Database.
If you use a bit (checkbox) value, you can assume there are only two values: YES and NO. But this is incorrect. In the database 3 values can be used for a bit value: YES, NO and NULL. On the forms in CRM the NO and the NULL are perceived the same, both as NO. When you query a checkbox, with the query ‘Checkbox Equals No’, you will only get the records where the bit is actually NO. The records with a NULL value in the database are not included in the result. In case you want the NO and the NULL values, you can better query ‘Checkbox Does Not Equal Yes’.

In other words I recommend to query always on the positive (YES) value when querying a checkbox.
So I recommend ‘Checkbox Equals Yes’ and ‘Checkbox Does Not Equal Yes’.

(1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 7)

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