Data Migration Manager and Configuration Workflows…

Go together like cold Negra Modelo and fresh Guacamole!

I recently visited Mexico City, and had the good fortune to stay in a hotel (the Fiesta Inn, in case you ever visit the Santa Fe district) that served the best guacamole I’ve ever tasted. It was even better if consumed with a couple cold Negra Modelos. As I enjoyed that particular combination, I also learned to enjoy another one: the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Data Migration Manager and automatic workflows to configure the account records I was migrating.

I recorded a video on the topic (the DMM and account configuration workflows, that is), and if you’d like to simply jump in and watch it, here’s the link:

Using the Data Migration Manager and Automatically Configuring Account Records

Background

Until recently, I’d had limited experience with the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Data Migration Manager (henceforth, DMM). Mainly I’d used it to migrate the sample data set you can download here. You’d expect it to work well with a sample data set designed for the purpose, and it does. A few weeks back I needed to use it for a real customer engagement…so I finally had to actually learn it. My impression from a recent meeting of the Dynamics CRM User Group is that not many people are using it, perhaps assuming that tools like the ones offered by Scribe Software are a practical requirement to migrate real data. I might have thought that before I learned how to use it but I don’t anymore. If you need to migrate data into Dynamics CRM 4 I encourage you to consider the DMM. Certainly it has the advantage of being free, and while there are plenty of things Scribe can do that the DMM cannot (e.g., real-time data integration applications), my guess is that for a wide class of data migration scenarios the DMM will do just fine.

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Data Migration Manager

The DMM is a standalone application. You run it on a PC with an Internet connection (or at least, with a connection to your CRM server), and you must be a system administrator to run it. It’s worthwhile comparing it to the Import Data Wizard, which is exposed from within the CRM interface, and can be used by any CRM user with sufficient permissions. Here’s a quick summary of the things the DMM can do that the Import Wizard cannot:

These five features are important, and with the exception of the last one (which is a nice-to-have but maybe not a must), come pretty close to defining a baseline required feature set for an enterprise-capable data migration tool.

Here are the features I illustrate in the video:

• Migrate a complex, relational data set. I show a data migration of Accounts, Contacts and activity (phone call) records. These are related to each other, and as you’ll see if you watch the video, the DMM is excellent at migrating complex data sets like this.
• Maintain actual historical values of “created date” for migrated records. Unless you want to lose the dates records were created, this is a must-have feature, and the DMM handles it nicely.
• Can create custom entities on the fly. As I said above, this might not be a must-have feature, but it sure is convenient!

 In some other videos I’ll focus more on some of the other important features.

Account Configuration Workflows

OK, what does any of this have to do with account configuration workflows? Well, strictly speaking, not much. But just as my favorite guacamole is better with Negra Modelo, my argument is that the DMM is better with one of these. The key thing is that if you have a published workflow triggered by “create record” for account (any entity, for that matter, but these are generally more valuable for account records), it doesn’t matter how a record is created – the workflow will always run.

In the example I show, the imported account records have values for the country they’re located in, and the U.S. records contain zip codes. I’ve got territories defined (using the out of the box CRM Territory entity) of these values: International, East, Central, West. My organization’s base currency is the U.S. dollar, and I’ve got additional currencies (Mexican Peso, Canadian dollar, and the Euro). Here’s the heuristic structure and logic of the workflow:

• First, update any information that should be shared by all account records
• Next, check to see if country=US
  • If so, check zip code value
    • If starts with 1,2,3 or 4, set Territory=”East”
    • If starts with 5 or 6, set Territory=”Central”
    • If starts with 7,8 or 9, set Territory=”West”
• If country value <> US
  • Set Territory=”International”
  • Check country value
    • If MX, set default currency = Peso
    • If CA, set default currency = Canadian dollar
    • If GE, FR, EN, set default currency = Euro

As I said, it’s a relatively simple workflow, but it improves my account data a lot! After migrating the data, in the video I show how easy it is to create a graphical view of how your data are distributed across various categories. I show a pie chart of how my new accounts are distributed across territories, but I could just as easily do it for countries, currencies, or any other piece of data stored on the account records.

For more information…

At the Dynamics CRM User Group Meeting on June 25^th, 2009, I’m going to give a more thorough presentation on the topic of the Data Migration Manager, so if you’re interested, please join us: register here.

Also: I’ve got a whole book on workflows, chock-full of examples, explanations, and tips & tricks. It’s available in print, downloadable, and even a cool new e-Book version for you Kindle readers. You can buy it from my lulu.com storefront, at http://stores.lulu.com/richardknudson 

Or if you prefer, you can get it on Amazon for the same price.

Cheers -

Richard – richardk@imginc.com