Update any number of entity records in dynamics CRM using Microsoft Excel Online

There are many ways to update multiple records of a dynamics CRM entity, in this blog let’s see one of the easiest and faster way to do it that is by using excel online. 

Let’s consider an example, let’s say you have a fixed number of account records and you manually want to update the  account number. 

Step 1 : Go to the entity’s home page who’s records you want to update. 

Step 2: On the All Accounts view (or any view) click on edit columns and add the columns as which you want to update in my case it is Account Number. 

Step 2 : Once your view is ready click on Export to Excel Button on the top left and select Open in excel online. 

Step 3:  This will open all your accounts in an excel sheet in a pop up window. 

Step 4 : Now you just need to update the columns which you want to update and hit save (I am adding all the account numbers). 

Step 6: You will get a Popup about your data being submitted for import, hit Track Progress. 

Step 7: You will see your data has being submitted for updating and is parsing. (It will take couple of minutes to hours depending upon the amount of data you have submitted keep refreshing to see the progress of the records). 

Step 8: Once the import job is completed you will see how many records where created successfully and how many failed or partially failed. You can open the import job and check failed entries, correct the entries and re-import  (All my reports where successfully updates) 

Failed records (Sample from some older imports) 

All the successfully parsed records will be updated in your system. 

Before Update:  

After Update:  

Hope this helps !😊 

Sync Security Roles of a D365 CRM user with another user

White configuring a dynamics 365 environment multiple users can have same security roles and assigning the same security roles to multiple users can be an error inducing & time consuming activity. 

But in the world of dynamics 365 there are always quick and simple workarounds for everything, In this blog I will show you how you can Sync security roles of a user with another users using the Security Roles Sync tool in the XRMToolBox, with this tool you will not have to keep assigning the same roles all the users instead you can just assign the roles to a single user and then sync the roles of all the other users with this user.  

Let’s Begin… 

First step is to install the XRM Tool Box, connect it to your environment and install the Security Roles Sync tool. 

I have explained how you can install the XRM Tool Box, how to connect your D365 environment in the XRM Tool Box and how to install tools in the XRM Tool Box in the linked blog which is on another interesting and time saving XRM Tool Box tool, so do check out the blog – Import / Transfer Data between D365 CRM single instance and cross instance environments seamlessly with only a few clicks. 

Once you are done connecting and installing the tool in the XRMToolBox you need to select the Source User & Target User and hit Sync Security Role button. 

Once sync is complete your Target User will have the same security roles as the Source User 

Hope this helps 😊! 

Record Auto Numbering in Dynamics 365 CRM

With Dynamics 365 you can Auto number your records, Auto numbers can be configured to generate sequential numbers for records. This is particularly useful when you need to track and organize data in a specific order, such as customer account invoices, purchase orders, or service requests (Cases). Sequential numbering helps maintain a logical sequence and makes it easier to reference or search for specific records. 

In this blog let’s see how we can edit the existing Out-Of-Box auto numbering provided by dynamics 365 for contracts, cases, quotes, invoices and how we can enable auto numbering for other entities like Accounts, Project etc. 

Existing Out-Of-Box auto numbering. 

Dynamics 365 CRM by default has auto numbering set on the entities listed below. 

• Contracts 
• Cases 
• Quotes 
• Orders 
• Invoices 
• Campaigns 
• Articles 
• Categories 
• Knowledge Articles 

Let’s take an example for the Project Contract(Order)entity – > The Auto Number for the contract entities looks as shown below. It is a combination of a Prefix – Number – Random Character Suffix. 

You can change the Prefix to anything you want and the character limit of the suffix for all the entities listed above apart from Articles and Knowledge Articles. To do so follow the steps below. 

1. Go to https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments 
2. Select the environment and click on Detailed View. 

3. One you are on the detailed view click on Settings. 

4. In Settings under Data Management you will find Auto Numbering. 

5. You will be directed to a new tab and there you will find the configuration setting for changing the auto number sequence for the entities listed above. 

Enable Auto Numbering for other CRM Entities 

Now let’s see how we can enable auto numbering for any other entity, let’s take an example for the account entity. 

1. Go to https://make.powerapps.com/  –> Chose the appropriate environment and click on tables. 

2. Under tables search for the entity you are looking for in this example it is accounts. 

3. Once you are in the entity form customization settings click on columns. 

4. Now click on new columns and create a new column with data type auto number. 

5. You get to choose between 3 types of auto numbering methods. 

a. String Prefixed number 

b. Date Prefixed number 

c. Custom. 

Let’s see each of the auto numbering types in detail. 

1. String Prefixed Number 

In this type of auto number you can provide any value to be the prefix of the auto number -> enter the minimum number of digits and from which number you want your auto numbering to start in the seed value 

2. Date Prefixed Number 

Date Prefixed is similar to string prefixed in this case the date will be the prefix of the auto numbering series you can also select from different available date formats. 

3. Custom 

In a custom Auto number type, you can set a custom combination of the Date Format (Denoted in red ) a sequential number format (Denoted in green) and a random string format (Denoted in Blue ) you can make a combination of these three format and make a custom autonumbering series. 

Once you are set with the auto numbering field save the field, add the field on the form and don’t forget to publish the form and now your entity record will be sequenced with the auto number you just created. 

Hope this helps 😊!

Undo / Restore Dynamics 365 CRM Record in just a few clicks

I was wondering since we can capture audit history in dynamics 365 CRM for entity records, can this audit history be used in case we need to undo some changes, only way I knew was to review the Audit log and manually make the changes, until I found this wonderful tool Audit History Rollback in the XRMToolBox.  

In this blog I will show you how undo or restore a dynamics CRM record in just a few clicks using the Audit History Rollback Tool. 

So Let’s begin… 

In the below image the left hand side image shows the entity record before it was updates and the right hand side  image shows the updates done on the entity record. 

Below is the image of the Audit History for the contact record you see that the Job Title, Account Name, Business Phone was updates, let’s see using the Audit History Rollback Tool how we can reverse these changes. 

Connect to XRM Tool Box : 

Step 1: Download XRM Tool Box from this link – https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/  

Step 2: Make a connection to your Dynamics 365 Environments inside of the XRM Tool Box. 

Step 3:  To create environments click on Create new connection –> Click on Microsoft Login Control –> Click on Open Microsoft Login Control. 

Step 4: Now Select Display list of available organizations & show advance –> put your username and password -> after successful authentication Name your Connection. (In this example have connected my environments PO Trail Production as shown the above screenshots). 

Connect To Audit History Rollback Tool: 

Step 1: In the tool library search for Audit History Rollback Tool and install it. 

Step 2: Once you are on the Audit History Rollback Tools Window –> Click on Load Entities. 

Step 3: Select the entity and add the GUID of the entity -> you can get the GUID of the through the records URL. 

Step 4: Once the Entity & Record GUID is set click on Load Audit History you will get the entire audit history of the record. 

Step 5: Select the audit records you want to reverse or Undo and hit the green Rollback button. 

Step 6: The tool will roll back the record based on the audit history, even this is captured in your audit history. 

Output:

Hope this helps 😊! 

Check security role’s access in just a few clicks – D365 CRM

To identify what access a security roles provides to the users can be a difficult manual review process, but with the such an amazing power platform community there are always simple and effective works arounds.  

In this blog I will show you how you can check any Security Role’s access in just a few clicks using the Access Security Roles tool in the XRM tool box. So let’s begin. 

Connect to XRM Tool Box : 

Step 1: Download XRM Tool Box from this link – https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/  

Step 2: Make a connection to your Dynamics 365 Environments inside of the XRM Tool Box. 

Step 3:  To create environments click on Create new connection –> Click on Microsoft Login Control –> Click on Open Microsoft Login Control 

Step 4: Now Select Display list of available organizations & show advance –> put your username and password -> after successful authentication Name your Connection. (In this example have connected my environments PO Trail and AP Production as shown the above screenshots) 

Connect To Access Security Roles Tool: 

Step 1: In the tool library search for Access Security Role tool and install it. 

Step 2: Connect to the environment in which you need to check the security role access –> under tools search for Access Security Role tool which you just installed. 

Step 3: Now you are connected to the tool and you will be see the screen below – > Click on Load Roles/Entities. 

Step 4: After you load all Roles and Entities the tool will load all the entities and roles withing your Environment. ( you can also scope your entities and roles to a solution or for a specific business unit). 

Step 5: Final step is to select the entities and the Role’s to check the Role’s access. (You can select multiple roles and entities by using control right click) – > Once you are done selecting the entity and the role click on Show Permission button. 

Step 6: This will show you what permission the Security Roles provides to the assigned users on that entity. In this example I have selected the Case (incident) entity and I have selected the Basic User, CEO – Business Manager and CEO – Read Only Business Manager role and the permissions are highlighted as in the below image. 

Hope this helps 😊! 

Import / Transfer Data between D365 CRM single instance and cross instance environments seamlessly with only a few clicks.

Importing data between Dynamics 365 environments is a little tedious, if not tedious then time consuming, this can be done by various different ways most commonly used approach is to use Excel imports. 

In this blog I will show you just by using a simple XRM tool Box,  Data Transporter Tool how you can import/transfer your dynamics 365 data from between single tenant or cross tenant environments. So let’s begin. 

In this example we will be transferring Accounts data between cross tenant environments as shown below. Using the XRM Tool Box Data Transporter Tool.  

Connect to XRM Tool Box : 

Step 1: Download XRM Tool Box from this link – https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/  

Step 2: Make a connection to your Dynamics 365 Environments inside of the XRM Tool Box. 

Step 3:  To create environments click on Create new connection –> Click on Microsoft Login Control –> Click on Open Microsoft Login Control. 

Step 4: Now Select Display list of available organizations & show advance –> put your username and password -> after successful authentication Name your Connection. (In this environment I have connected both my environments PO Trail and AP Production as shown the above screenshots) 

Connect To Data Transporter Tool : 

Step 1: In the tool library search for Data Transporter and install it. 

Step 2: Connect to your source environment from which you want to transfer the data –> in the tools section of the XRM tool box search for Data Transporter Tool and select it. 

Step 3: As you are connected to with your source environment it will appear in the source section of the tool, now click on select target environment and connect to your target environment. 

Step 4: Once the source and target entities are set follow the below. 

1. Select the entity whose data you want to transfer. 
2. Select the attributes of the entity which you want to transfer. 
3. Select the settings if you want to Create, Update or Delete records. 
4. Select the Auto Mapping and Finally hit the Transfer Data button on the top. 

(Using the same steps you can also move data for environments in single tenant.) 

Important Note: Make sure both the environments have the same customizations any missing field in either of the environments will result in errors in the import you can resolve those errors as per the error list. 

Output:  

Environments before import  

Environments after import 

Hope this helps 😊!  

Move solution components from multiple solutions to single solutions in one click

Let’s say you are developing a module driven app or some custom app development in CRM and multiple teams have created multiple different solutions involving customizations for the development. 

Best would be to have all the customizations in a single solution before and then move it to UAT or Production. 

In this blog I will show you how you can move components of multiple solutions into a single main solution using the Solutions Component Mover tool in XRM Tool Box. So let’s begin. 

Step 1: Download XRM Tool Box from this link – https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/  

Step 2: Make a connection to your Dynamics 365 Environment inside of the XRM Tool Box by clicking on Create a new connection. 

Step 2: Click on Microsoft Login Control 

Step 3: Click on Open Microsoft Login Control 

Step 4: Now Select Display list of available organizations & show advance –> put your username and password -> after successful authentication Name your Connection 

Step 5: Now in Took Library Search for “Solution Component Mover” and hit install. 

Step 6: Once the tool is installed it will appear in your tool list click on it  

Step 7: once you are in the solution component mover tool click on Load Solution. 

Now you will get the list of all Managed and Unmanaged solutions select the solutions which you want to merge in the source solution section and select the target solution in which you want to move the components.  All the components from source solutions will be moved to the target solution (Selected Solutions are highlighted in light grey color ). 

Once you have selected the source and target solutions hit Copy Components and we are done. 

Hope this helps 😊! 

Add or remove sample data from a dynamics 365 CRM environment

Let’s say you configured a Dynamics 365 Sales or Project Operation or a field service trial for a client demo to save your efforts on creating sample data dynamics gives you an option to add data in any dynamics 365 environment, you can either choose to install the sample data while creating the environment however if you forgot to do so, here is how you can add sample data within your dynamics 365 environment. 

Step 1 – Go to https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments select your dynamics 365 environment and click on view details. 

Step 2 – On the details page click on setting. 

Step 3 – On the setting page under data management you will see an option named sample data, click on it. 

Step 4 – Click installed and after a few minutes sample data will be added within your dynamics 365 environment. 

Similarly if sample data is already installed and you wish to remove it  you will see a button Remove sample data instead of Install sample data. 

Hope this helps ! 😊