Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

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Posted on by M I Mostafa

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Hi all,

My turn to ask a question! I have a problem with one of my projects where we have a Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (version 8.1) solution that we are migrating across to Dynamics 365 Online (v 8.2). When the team was exporting the solution from the on-premise version and tries to deploy it to an Dynamics 365 online version 8.2, multiple errors are showing up related to business process flows.

I know that BPFs data model has now changed which means that BPFs are now entities but the solution deployment should normally upgrade BPFs into entities. It worked before for me on other projects except that this solution has a large number of BPFs. After a number of errors related to missing references to BPFs, etc., we are now getting error when trying to export the solution:

"The process cannot be completed because of a missing unique name.” and it is pointing to a number of BPFs.

To give more context, in order for us to overcome the initial BPF problems, we did an in-place upgrade of Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 on-premise (8.2) which worked fine and allowed us to export and import the solution to the Dynamics 365 Online environment. However, we are now unable to export the BPFs from the Dynamics 365 sandbox environment and we are getting error:

"The process cannot be completed because of a missing unique name".

Has anyone got this BPF problem or other similar problems related to upgrading Dynamics CRM 2016 and existing Business Process Flows? any help, ideas or advice is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

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Ashish Vishwakarma 80 on at

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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

I also faced this issue, I tried this and it worked for me.

https://www.ashishvishwakarma.com/bpf-import-error-this-process-cannot-be-imported-because-it-cannot-be-updated-or-does-not-have-a-unique-name-dynamics-365/
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saadzag 1,145 on at

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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

Hello,

Here is some actions I did to solve the problem in my Dev instance:

1-I created new solution, and put bpfs and & the entities linked to.

2-export the solution as unmanaged

3-replace all "new_bpf" by "yourpublisher_bpf"
in "solution.xml" and "customization.xml" and in folder Formulas

4-I deleted the bpfs that have "new_" from the dev instance, this action should delete by cascading the entities linked to bpfs

5- I reimport the solution modified

That solved the problem

At you disposal

Saad
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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

Hi Mohamed,

Have you applied update 2.1? You can find it here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3142345/microsoft-dynamics-365-updates-and-hotfixes

In this hotfix, they do address some business process flow errors with upgrading from 8.1 to 8.2. An update on my status: I first updated our dev instance from 8.1 to 8.2 and then applied this hotfix. Restored backup from prod which upgraded the organization to 8.2. All records created in the 8.1 org which were imported to dev manifest an error when trying to advance or change buisness process flows (entity with ID (GUID) does not exist). However, I CAN create new record with the same business process flows and they work without error.

For prod, we backed up both front and back end servers with images and then did an in-place upgrade from 8.1 to 8.2 and then applied the 2.1 update linked to above. All records with existing business process flows functioned after the updates without error. SO as you have already pointed out, the issue is when trying to import an organization into a newer 8.2 environment from 8.1. Findings confirmed with my experience.

My next step will be to import a copy of our prod 8.2.1 org and then importing that into our dev 8.2.1 environment. I expect that this will be my workaround. I'll report back if this resolved the errors with BPF stage changes.
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M I Mostafa 4,257 on at

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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

Hi all,

Thanks for your thoughts. Here is the flow of what we tried:

1) Exported CRM 2016 on-premise and tried to import to Dynamics 365 8.2 Online: Failed due to BPFs (various errors)

2) In-place upgrade of CRM 2016 on-premise to Dynamics 365 on-premise: Succeeded. However, BPFs converted into entities but with prefix "new_" instead of the default publisher prefix.

3) Then exported from Dynamics 365 on-premise and import to Dynamics 365 Online: succeeded (but after a lot of pain with a lot of dependencies and generic errors).

4) Trying to export the same unmanaged solution from Dynamics 365 Online to deploy to other environments: Failed. Timeout error. Dynamics 365 Online has a default timeout of 4 minutes for solutions export.

5) Raised a ticket with Microsoft - timeout time extended which allowed to export the solution.

6) Trying to import exported solution to other Dynamics 365 Online environments: Failed. BPFs unique name errors as followed:

"The process cannot be completed because of a missing unique name".

7) This is were we are now.

We believe this is a Microsoft issue and the team have raised a Microsoft support ticket now.

Hopefully the above helps anyone who is facing similar issues. I will keep everyone updated on progress and for future reference to those migrating from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise to Dynamics 365 Online with many BPFs.
Daniel Wikell 2,360 on at

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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

Someone else with the same problem:

community.dynamics.com/.../236633

My take from that one is that the current upgrade process corrupts the BPF unique name instead of preserving it. You should probably file a bug with Microsoft and the Dynamics-team if you haven't already.
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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

This article was of some interest, though I am still confused about if this should be working or not:

http://gustafwesterlund.blogspot.ca/2017/02/dynamics-365-new-bpf-architecture-gotcha.html
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RE: Business Process Flow Error upgrading solutions from Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise (8.1) to Dynamics 365 Online (8.2)

Yes, I am having this issue as well. Please post if you find a solution. I have read that this is a known issue, however, I haven't found any workarounds that are working for me.