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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / error importing a CSV ...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

error importing a CSV file

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Posted on by mgvardhan 945

I’ve been trying to import a list of contacts in CRM but I keep getting error messages saying

 “The column heading cannot be empty”.   I’m using a standard CSV file, but I consistently get the same error message.  I’ve attached the CSV file so that you can see that there are column headings.  I’m attempting to import this list through the data management area of the system.  My intent is for this list to be a marketing list we can use for future campaigns.  could you try importing a sample  list and let me know if you run into the same problem?

After the list is imported, how does it become a marketing list?  Is there another step after the import? 

 

 I have quite a bit of work to do in CRM and I need to start populating the system as soon as possible.

   please help me Thanks,  

 

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  • Leon Tribe Profile Picture
    Leon Tribe 7,034 on at
    I can't see an attached file but this error msg can display if the file contains carriage returns in it. Often these crop up if the source of data is something like Outlook which dumps into csv format without stripping these out. To clean up the data, isolate the column giving you grief and use this formula against the cells in it: SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(,CHAR(13),""),CHAR(10),""). This strips out char(13) and char(10) which are the common culprits. Unfortunately I do not have a good answer for determining which column is the problem one although address columns are quite common. Run the excel cursor down the column and if the cell text 'jumps' out of the box at the top of Excel this is probably a guilty field. Leon Tribe
  • davidengel Profile Picture
    davidengel 255 on at

    One easy way to check which column is causing the error with return characters is just open the CSV file in a text editor (Wordpad, Notepad, etc.) and look at the start of each line. Addresses and notes fields are the usual culprit.

    To get your imported list to be a marketing list, you designate it to be a marketing list when you import it. I am not certain, however, of what different requirements there would be, as compared to importing a list of leads, for instance.

    David

  • crmPatrick Profile Picture
    crmPatrick 15 on at

    I found one additional solution.  When viewing the CSV file within Excel, if any of the columns have a background color, remove the column (copy/paste data where necessary).  I could not import the CSV file into CRM and realized that, even if I saved the XLS files as a CSV file, the column background was being carried over and causing this error every time.

  • Nahshon Pinto Profile Picture
    Nahshon Pinto 5 on at

    Hi,

    Open the csv file and remove the last comma from each line including the column heading line, save file and try and reimport.

    Cheers

    Nash

  • Jared Mendham Profile Picture
    Jared Mendham 5 on at

    Just had the same issue, this may help future searchers:

    I was trying to import a data map and was receiving the above error after previously having no issue.

    Turns out I had a space between two words in a column heading I'd added after the previous version, rather than an underscore, and Dynamics didn't like that. Added the underscore, no problems

  • Hussain Ali Profile Picture
    Hussain Ali 60 on at

    I encountered the same problem & here are the steps by which I got through it.

    1) Open the csv in excel. 

     2) Copy all of the table to import.

    3) Create another sheet in excel

    4) paste special with values only in new sheet

     

    Hussain Ali

     

  • FST Profile Picture
    FST 10 on at

    For me, I had opened my .csv in Excel 2013 previously.  Excel had added columns where the column headers needed more space to show up (not overlap with the next column).  The fix for me was to re-open the file in Excel, confirm those columns by poking around a bit, and delete them completely.

  • FST Profile Picture
    FST 10 on at

    (And, if you think Google is so awesome, don't try having more than a few people editing a document at the same time.  And if you pay Google for corporate services, and don't want your users to http their company credentials plaintext across the internet, good luck there as well! Oh, and heaven forbid you nest email groups by mistake-- sometimes you'll get your email, sometimes you won't. Hopefully you don't waste too much troubleshooting that one on your own few months when people figure out it's not someone else at the company actually TRYING to miscommunicate with them.)

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