Reimporting edited contacts

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Hi. I'm experimenting with exporting contacts to edit them and then reimporting them to CRM.

I have a contact that I export to excel, ticking to make it available for reimporting in the process. I make changes, save the Excel XML file and then import. Each time I submit, the Imports log shows a partial failure due to '

A record was not created or updated because a duplicate of the current record already exists.'

The only time I can make changes is if, during the Import Wizard, I select 'Yes' to allowing duplicates. This doesn't actually create a new duplicate contact, but it does successfully update the existing contact.

The fields look exactly the same as all other contacts and those other contacts seem to export and reimport without problems when 'No' is selected to the 'Allow duplicates' question.

Could anyone help me:

Isolate what it is about this particular contact entity that is causing the reimport failure.
Why, if I select 'Yes' to 'Allow duplicates' at the reimport Wizard stage it doesn't actually create a duplicate contact, but instead just updates the existing contact with the changes I have made to its fields?

Thank you very much

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mscrmba on at

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

When you export a file for reimport it takes the GUID (it's hidden in columns A-C on the export file - you can unprotect the sheet and expand the columns to take a look). When you reimport that file it just looks at the GUID and matches on that.

The lookups are different (and act the same way as when you import a brand new file). CRM doesn't know the GUIDs for those records so can only match on the text you have input. On that basis it does its best to do something sensible so invokes your duplicate detection rules.

Hope that helps to explain.

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm not a coder, but after your first suggestion, I isolated the problem by playing with the Duplicate Detection Rules.

I had mistakenly published a DDR for contacts with the same first name and there's another contact with the first name 'Simon', so it was triggered by that.

It's interesting though - do the results of the DDR differ depending on whether I'm reimporting a file or importing a new file?

For example, if:

I had one DDR published: Contacts with the same first name.

I had only one contact in CRM. His name is Joe Bloggs.

I export the Contact and during the export step I selected to reimport . I add a business phone number. When I re-import the XML file, even if I selected to not allow duplicates, the updates to the Contact would be made - because the DDR is not checking the re-imported file against the underlying record that was exported? It is only checking against any records that were not originally exported for editing prior to re-importing?

If I had a CSV template with all the fields for a Contact Record Type and I put 'Joe' under the column heading of 'first name' and 'Bloggs' under the column heading of 'last name' and then imported it via the Import Wizard, mapping to a Contact Record Type and not allowing duplicates. Presumably now the DD rule will be triggered because I already have a contact in CRM with the first name 'Joe'?

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mscrmba on at

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

Do the screenshots show all the columns you are re-importing?

Did you change the lookups for any of the records (or just use them for reference purposes)?

* If you made no changes then the lookup columns don't need to be in the reimport file at all - and you could perhaps unprotect the file and remove the lookup columns and the hidden columns just next to them (other than columns A-D). And then try reimporting.

Do you by any chance have a duplicate detection rule that could be kicking in? It looks as if the Account lookup field content may not be the cause of the duplicate error.

____________________________________________________________________

The Source Row column is showing you the GUID of the affected record (that's what a GUID looks like in CRM).

Are you a coder / do you have access to a coder who can pull back the name of the record for the GUID you're seeing (you'll need to do a SQL query) The query needs to be something like:

SELECT fullname FROM nameofentity WHERE systemuserid = 'GUID VALUE'

Given we don't know which entity for sure you may need to check a few - account, contact to start.

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

Hi. Thank you for continuing to look at this. I've attached some images of various attempts at re-importing. I'm sorry if the quality isn't so good.

1. How I try to import the contact I am having a problem with

2. This is what happens when I try with another contact. It, like the first one, has its Company Name lookup to a unique Account.

3. This is when I try re-importing the problem contact but I say Yes to allowing duplicates

4. This is when I try deleting the lookup field

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mscrmba on at

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

Mmmmm.

You could try zeroing out any data from just the Account lookup field for the records that are failing (i.e. edit the xml file) before you re-import and see what that does.

I'm about to call it a day but will see how you got on in the morning and see if I can give you any further information if that doesn't solve the issue.

If it doesn't work - can you attach a screenshot of your failures view?

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

These are both blank.

Original Row Number is 2

And Source Row has a long string of numbers, letters and hyphens

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mscrmba on at

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

On the view of failures, does it show the specific Column Heading and Column Value that is causing the issue?

If not, then do you have e.g. duplicate detection on email addresses?

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

Hi, mscrmba

Thanks for looking at my question.

The field 'Company Name' in the Contact entity does have a lookup to an Account. But there is only one Account of this name in our Dynamics CRM and no inactive accounts of the same name.

I click on the failures tab and get the description each time of 'A record was not created or updated because a duplicate of the current record already exists.' and an Error Code of 0x80040333

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mscrmba on at

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RE: Reimporting edited contacts

Do you have a lookup field in the import. Are there 2 records with the same value held in that lookup field?

As an example:

I'm bringing in a Contact with a lookup value in the Account field of 'ABC Company'. But there are 2'ABC Company' accounts loaded in my system. CRM doesn't know which one to link it to. You will have to change the name of one of those Account records (at least temporarily) if you want the import to fully work.

Go to Settings>Data Management>Imports> Open the Import that is failing/partially failing. Click on 'Failures' to see the details of the duplicate records you have to deal with.

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