Import Data (Import Data Wizard) – Few key points

Let us understand a few points about the Import Data feature with a simple example –

Say for example we have exported the following 4 records.

The exported file will have the view name along with the timestamp.

The exported file –

It has 3 hidden columns that allow for re-import of these records possible.

1^st column contains the GUID of the record, the second contains the Row Checksum which it uses to make sure to update only those records or rows which are changed, and the 3^rd column is Modified On which it uses to track if the record has been modified since it was exported.

Now let us update one of the records we exported inside CRM.

On importing the same file,

as expected we get 1 failure.

Error message – “You cannot import data to this record because the record was updated in Microsoft Dynamics 365 after it was exported” for the same record which we updated inside the app.

Now let us update one of the records (which has a possible duplicate) and re-import the file.

During import, we have let the Allow Duplicates settings be default i.e. No.

This time also apart from the previous error we get one partial failure.

The error message says – “A record was not created or updated because a duplicate of the current record already exists.“

This is because the record that was modified and imported was having another record having the same email id, triggering our duplicate detection rules. Also, we had specified Allow Duplicates as No while importing the file.

This time let us set Allow Duplicates as Yes and try the import with the same file.

As expected there was no partial error this time.

And the record got updated this time.

Another point to remember is if we export and import the file without any changes, or for the rows with no modification, it will not perform any action, i.e. trigger a create/update for any of the records.

For tracking the changes, as we mentioned earlier it uses the Row Checksum column’s hash value.

Now let’s update the GUID of the record in the 1^st row (changed b to c in the end) and the modified date (changed to 55 from 53 minute part) for the 4^th row and see the results.

As expected both these records failed – 1^st one where we changed the GUID with the error message – “The record could not be updated because the original record no longer exists in Microsoft Dynamics 365” and the 4^th row with the error that “You cannot import data to this record because the record was updated in Microsoft Dynamics 365 after it was exported” as we had changed the Modified Date in the imported excel file.