Import attachments using OOB Import Wizard in Dynamics CRM 2011

As we all know that the there is no separate entity for the attachments in Dynamics CRM 2011. We can add the attachments into the Note (annotation) entity.

But in order to import Notes and attachments in the CRM 2011, it is essential that you must have the separate files for them.

For importing Notes with the attachments by the import wizard you need to Arrange all of your files and attachments into a zip folder as shown into the below screenshot.

 

Where the “Notes.csv” contains the data of the Notes as shown into the below screenshot.

 

And “Attachments” folder above contains all the attachment documents. The files contained in the Attachments folder are as shown below.
 

After that please zip both the Attachments folder and Notes.csv into a single folder, and then import with the following mappings.

After completing the import it will display the data as follows under the corresponding regarding records.

Important points to note:

 

• Only map that column of the source file to the Document (documentbody) field of the Note record type which includes information about attachments. The mapped value in the source column to the document is the file name that is used to search a file in the Attachments folder in the .zip file.

• Each note record can have one attached file. You cannot import attachments to e-mail messages, sales literature items, or to any record type that does not support notes. The types of files that can be attached are determined in the Set blocked file extensions for attachments section of the System Settings dialog box.

• If you import file attachments, each attachment has two names: a physical name (Document in our case)and a logical name (File Name in our case). The logical names might not be unique. The physical names must be unique.

• During import, you must map the column with physical names to the "Document" field of the Note record type. You must map the column with logical names to the "FileName" field of the Note record type.

• The value in source column that is mapped to the Document is the file name that is used to search a file in the Attachments folder in the .zip file.

•  Each attachment must have a unique name to import. It is mandatory to include a column for the physical names in the source file. Also include a logical names column assigned to the file that is imported. You must map the column containing the logical file name to the File Name attribute in the Note (annotation) record type.

• We recommend that you map the column that contains information about the parent record to the Regarding field of the Note record type. This column creates the relationship between the note and the parent record to which the note is attached.

• In the .zip file, the folder containing attachments must be named Attachments.

 

 

Hope you find this information helpful.

 

Import data now allows you to Create the entities as well

CRM 4.0 made available the feature to import data into CRM using the Import feature. But this was only restricted to importing data in existing entities.


In CRM 2011 this feature has now been extended to go one step further and even create the entity in CRM to hold the data in case an entity for that does not already exist. CRM 2011 also provides us the capability to define the entity attributes as well while importing the data.

Let me explain the step one by one to give the exact understanding of the dynamic concept.

-Click on “Import Data” button


- A dialog to import your CSV data will be displayed as given in the below screen shot.

- After that Dialog to which we want to map the data will be displayed. In that window select the “Create New” as given in the below screen shot. Provide the name for the new entity along with the Primary Field name.
- After that a window to map the attributes to the data will be shown as given below. -For mapping of each column we can create new field as given in the below screen shot. Please make sure to provide mapping for primary field for Ex: in our case “Name”.
- After that a window showing the mapping summary will be displayed as given below.
- After that click on submit button

-After successfully importing the data, you will notice that the custom entity has also been created in CRM. You have to add the fields on the form as it is not implicitly added to the form