Quickly Create Custom Entities and Attributes in Dynamics CRM

The other day I had a large custom entity to create in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  This entity had over 150 custom attributes of various types, and my brain and fingers were already starting to ache just thinking about manually creating this entity.  I had an excel spreadsheet with an extract from a legacy system that had each of these fields defined, and I was dreading typing them in manually.

Then I remembered a tool in my CRM tool chest that I rarely use—the  CRM Data Migration Manager.  If you read the Customer Effective blog regularly, you probably know that we typically use Scribe Insight for integrations and migrations.  The standard CRM import tools are good for simple data imports, but lack the depth of features to do updates or scheduled migrations.

However, there is one feature of the Data Migration Manager that doesn’t exist in any other import tool (as far as I know).  That’s the ability to create new entities or attributes.  And while you may use other tools, such as Scribe, for the actual data migration, this functionality of the DMM can make it a very useful tool to add to the mix. 

Using the Data Migration Manager I cut what otherwise would have taken and hour and a half down to 10-15 minutes.  My fingers thanked me.

So here is how you would use the CRM Data Migration Manager to create a new entity:

Step 1: Create a spreadsheet of your data.  The columns should be the database/schema names you want your attributes to have.  Include at least one row of sample data.

Step 2: Launch the Data Migration Manager and create a new mapping.

Step 3: Select “Create a custom Microsoft Dynamics CRM Entity.

Step 4: Define the Entity, including the name and the primary attribute.

Step 5: The wizard will guide you through creating the new attributes.  Select the field type for each field.

 

Step 6:  When finished, the Data Migration Manager will create the entity and attributes for you.

Ready to go!

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft CRM,Dynamics CRM,time saving,create entity,Data Migration Manager

Comments

[Michael Dodd]

Wow. I had no idea this functionality was available. Here I am creating entities and attributes one-at-a-time like a sucker.
I don't suppose it creates custom relationships too, eh?
Either way, great info. Thanks for the heads up!

[Joel Lindstrom]

Michael,

I don't believe it does; however, it saves a ton of time to just create the entities and then come in and add the relationships.