Nishant Rana

Tips to conduct a successful upgrade from CRM On Premise to Dynamics 365 Online

This blog post is more relevant if you are looking to upgrade from CRM 2013 or 2015 on premise to Dynamics 365 Online. However, some sections are relevant for all upgrades of Dynamics CRM/365 in general.

With all the features that are added at a very rapid pace to Dynamics 365 and all the features that are exclusive to the cloud version, a lot of companies are looking to upgrade from the current on premises version of CRM to Dynamics 365 online. What are some of the key aspects to consider before and after upgrading?

Before you upgrade

It’s a good idea to look at some of the known issues with your version of Dynamics CRM. For example,

The growth of the Async Operation Base table that can cause performance issues (Microsoft provides a resolution here);
The growth of the Principal Object Access (POA) table which can also cause…

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Data Migration in Dynamics 365 – Key considerations

I was recently watching the FastTrack TechTalks on Data Migration.

https://community.dynamics.com/365/b/techtalks/posts/data-migration-january-16-2018

Below are some of the key points from the session à

Customer 360 View is more often than not, the starting point of the data migration discussions. Storing all the data in Dynamics 365 might not be a good idea as it could impact the performance and more importantly, the storage has a cost associated with it.

Learn more about the storage in Power Platform here

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/whats-new-storage

Important Considerations as part of the Data Migration Strategy

Data Source

What is the source of the migration? Is it a single system or multiple systems from which the data needs to be consolidated.
The appropriate connectors or technology needed to fetch or extract the data from the source system(s). (SQL, File-based, Web Service, etc.)
Need for a staging database for transformation and cleansing of data before migrating it to Dynamics 365.
Having a well-defined Dynamics 365 data dictionary and model.

Data Cleansing

Removal of the old data.
De-duplicate of the data.
Checking for null, missing required fields and references.
Identify and define the uniqueness of the record.
Need for defining Alternate keys

Data Transformation (mapping with Dynamics 365 entities and fields)

Transform the data to adapt to the target Dynamics 365 Data model.
Format and Range of the fields.
Calculate or combination of different fields.
Filtering and Enriching of the fields

Mapping OptionSet in KingswaySoft SSIS Integration Toolkit for Dynamics 365

Mapping OptionSet in Scribe Online

Lookup and Cache Transformation component in KingswaySoft SSIS Integration Toolkitfor Dynamics 365

Data Loading

Is it one-time migration (plus delta load daily) or n times migration
Based on the time it takes, the batch can run over the weekend or after office hours daily.
Order of data load – Master \ Configuration Data à Parent records àChild records.
Use Create or Update whenever possible instead of Upsert.
For Inactive records, first, we need to create those records as active, associate any child records to it if any, before updating the status of the record.
Use multithreading and execute multiple requests.
Figure out the optimum batch size and thread.

Optimum batch size

For Upsert in KingswaySoft SSIS Integration Toolkit for Dynamics 365

For Delete in KingswaySoft SSIS Integration Toolkit for Dynamics 365

Volume

How many records are to be migrated and how much time will it take.

Storage / Scalability

Do we need all the data to be stored in Dynamics 365, or for Customer 365, can we leverage Power BI reports which could pull data from different data sources?

Do we need all the data for all the entities or last x months?

Compliance and regulations

We need to consider what information is allowed to be stored/accessed by the users in Dynamics 365.

Other key points

Use WebAPI for migration.
Use Execute Multiple for batch operations.
Leverage Application User that provides Server to Server authentication.
To update CreatedOn field use OverriddenCreatedOn field.
Use Create OnBehalfOf / CallerID for Created By field.
Map ModifiedBy and ModifiedOn to custom fields for the historical purpose.
Check for the sequence of the auto-number fields in the entities.
If possible for improved performance – during migration disable duplicate detection, workflows, plugins, audit, activity feeds, etc.
Leverage the same location/region for running the package as the Dynamics 365.
For faster date-time conversions set regional settings to UTC for the service account being used.

Check out the below articles

https://kunaltripathy.com/2019/06/04/dynamics-365-data-migration-demystified-part-i/

Hope it helps..

Woohoo - You can query Dynamics 365 (CDS) with SQL….again

Hosk's Dynamic Blog

When was the last time you heard anyone getting excited about SQL? #HoskWisdom

It’s a crazy world when Microsoft announces NEW functionality of being able to Use SQL to query data in CDS and the Dynamics/Power Platform community get excited about it.

Some things go together to make something beautiful,

Strawberries and cream
Chaz and Dave
Nerds and computers

Now after a lengthy absence we have SQL and Dynamics 365, back together

I was trying to think back when I wrote my last SQL statement, I’m guessing it was with on-premise Dynamics project in 2013. Before then I remember spending 2 days trying to format an SSRS report.

This made me realise there was more to life than SSRS reports

What is SQL back?

Microsoft announced that there is an SQL data connection available to the Common Data Service. This connection provides read only access to entities.

Be aware is a…

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Dynamics CRM On-Premise to Online Migration Program – Microsoft FastTrack

Customers planning to migrate to the cloud should check out the below session, as part of FastTrack TechTalks, on Dynamics CRM On-Premise migration to Online.

https://community.dynamics.com/365/b/techtalks/posts/onpremises-to-online-migration-program-january-17-2020

Highlighting some of the main points

FastTrack Service is only available for eligible customers. Check the eligibility requirements below

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-IN/fasttrack/M365-eligible-services-and-plans

The customer \ partner will be guided and assisted by FastTrack Solution Architect as part of the FastTrack Program.
Supported SQL Server version – 2008, 2012, 2014, 2016.
Supported CRM On-Premise – 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 9.0.

High-level steps of the program include

Setting up the migration project in Microsoft Lifecycle Services, which uses the wizard-based hosted tool for the migration.
Setting up Azure subscription and storage account (for which customer needs to pay along with the Dynamics 365 Subscriptions) and provision staging sandbox environment.
Taking the backup of the CRM On-Premise database and uploading it to Azure Blob Container.

The backup is restored in the same version in Azure Hosted Virtual Machine i.e. CRM 2015 database will be restored in CRM 2015 VM.
PowerApps Checker service runs as part of the next phase, to validate the solution.
Finally, the Upgrade process starts, which upgrades the restored CRM Database to CRM 9.0 Database. E.g. CRM 2015 Backup will be restored in CRM 2015 VM, which will be then upgraded to CRM 2016 VM, and then finally to CRM 9.0 VM.
This is followed by user-mapping and the migration to the online as the last step.

Here, the customer/partner needs to make sure to transform all SQL Based report to Fetch XML, update the plugin to run in sandbox mode, update JavaScript to the new client object model, check for any 3^rd part tools and reconfiguration of integration, make users familiar with new Unified Client interface, cleaning of the database (for audit data), etc to make the solution online compatible. This can be done before restoring to the Azure Storage or during the staging phase (This is customer/ partner responsibility and will be assisted by FastTrack Architect and Microsoft Technical Support team for any upgrade issues).

Hope it helps..

Notes on Dynamics 365 for Phones and Tablets app – Part 12 (Mobile Offline Capabilities and Limitations)

Check the other articles of this series.

In this post, we’d cover some of the limitations and capabilities of Dynamics 365 Mobile App (in offline mode)

Add Existing (n-n relationship) is not supported in mobile offline

Mobile App – Online	Mobile App – Offline

Only System Views are available in offline mode.

“My Custom View” is public view which is available in online mode, but not in offline mode.

Mobile App – Online	Mobile App – Offline

BPF is not available in offline mode.

Mobile App – Online	Mobile App – Offline

Custom Ribbon Button are note available in offline mode

Mobile App – Online	Mobile App – Offline

The mobile offline is only available in iOS and Android phone and tablet app. Below is the screenshot of Tablet App on Windows 10. There is no option for going offline.

The offline option in Phones App for Android

Business Rules work in Offline mode.
Plugins and workflows are not supported in Offline mode.
Use Xrm.WebApi.offline to perform CRUD operation offline.

Mobile App – Online	Mobile App – Offline

Downloading offline updates can take a few minutes to an hour. (The user can still work online while the data is getting synced in the background)