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CRM 2013 – Importing users using the Data Import Wizard

I created a new Org today and I had to then add all the users into my CRM 2013 new org.

I tried recently to import some users in but the import kept failing, so I gave up.  I only had to add 5 users but now the list has grown to 17.

New Day new import

The first step was to export the users.  I selected First Name, Last Name, User Name.  To do this I created an Advanced find, selected all the users and then clicked the export button.

You can select other details like Phone number, Title and other details you may want to bring across.

If you want help with the name of the fields for importing you can easily get them from the Data Import Templates, this blog shows you how to find them.  If you export the data from CRM then the correct field names will already be created in the field header.

I am importing into a CRM 2013 On Premise Environment.  The reason I am mentioning this is the required fields are different for On-Premise CRM and CRM online

Here is the Data, I saved the file as XML Spreadsheet 2003 (gulp 12 years ago!).  This is an excel spreadsheet but with type of .xml.  The reason I choose this is because it seems to import easier and Microsoft CRM does a good job of automatically mapping the fields if the fields have the same name as the target fields e.g. First Name.

This is the minimum amount of data I need to import users (these are demo data users)

Importing users

The entity we are importing to is called SystemUser but the display name is User.

A top tip is to name your import file the same name as the display name of the entity you want to import and CRM will automatically recognise what entity you want to import to, which saves you time selecting the entity.

The required fields for importing users are

First Name

Last Name

User Name

Interestingly Full Name doesn’t seem to be a field, I think this is because it gets automatically set by CRM adding together the first and last name.

User Name is the really important field if you are importing to an On Premise CRM the user name must be

Domain\user
or
user@FQDN format
The reason you must include the domain is because Microsoft Dynamics CRM On Premise can only include users who exist in the domain.  CRM looks up the user.  CRM is passing off the security to the Domain server and by adding users who exist in your domain, when you log onto CRM it can check the user details, verifying it with the Domain server.  If you are a valid user then it will open the CRM page, at this point CRM will check your security role to see what you can view inside CRM.
If you are importing to CRM On Line you will need to include the Primary email field instead of user name.

Import Steps

1.  Go to Settings –> Data Management –> Import

Importing users 2

2.  Select Import Data

3.  Choose the file User.xml

4.  Next, Next

5.  Choose Default mapping

Importing users 3

6.  Map the fields, if you have added Full Name select ignore

Importing users 1

7.  Press Next, Next until you get to submit

After Import

Don’t forget to assign security roles to your users.  BUT before you do that make sure you assign the users to the correct Business unit.

If you gave the user a security and then changed business unit the user would lose it’s security role.  The reason for this is every time you change a user’s business unit it removes all security roles.

Read more about that in this blog post

CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – Business Units and Security Roles Study Information

You may not need to change the business unit because it will default to the primary business unit.

Manage User Roles

The quickest and easiest way to assign user roles to multiple users is to go to the User view Enabled users

Selected (check) the users you want to assign the same user role to

Click the Manage User Roles button

Assign those users a role

More Information

If you want some different instructions on importing users try these blogs

Importing Users into Dynamics CRM 2013 / Dynamics CRM 2015

Importing Data


Filed under: CRM 2011, CRM 2013

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