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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / Amending deactivated c...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Amending deactivated contacts

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Posted on by jsteelecrm 365

A bit of an odd question but is it possible to amend deactivated contacts without activating them.

We have about 50 contacts with personal and sensitive information on their records and I would like to delete this information without activating them. If I activate the records then they will join a bunch of marketing lists that then may kick off automated emails or they will also sync with our website and this personal information will be visible. I can shut down these related processes but was hoping to just remove this data. I have online and not premise so no SQL to just update. 

I was thinking of an import to overwrite this data?

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  • Suggested answer
    razdynamics Profile Picture
    razdynamics 17,308 User Group Leader on at

    Hi J

    You can Easily perform a Bulk  update operation on the inactive records  to clear those common fields with sensitive data Sometimes its a bad idea to delete records as you will not have a record of any interaction so overwriting the sensitive data with nulls may be better than deleting.

    Simply Perform an andvanced find on the 50 inactive records, tick the records that you want to update and then click Edit Button, and you can overwrite all teh common values for those records in one go,

    Hope that helps :)

  • jsteelecrm Profile Picture
    jsteelecrm 365 on at

    Superb. Thank you. Yes, I did not want to delete but just wanted to clear out the sensitive data with as little risk as possible. Thanks again.

  • Suggested answer
    Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    You can't edit inactive records directly, one at a time or using Bulk Edit. Also bear in mind that you cannot use Bulk Edit to clear data from fields, only to add or update fields (basically any field you leave blank in the bulk edit form remains unchanged).

    So you need to write a simple workflow which you can run on-demand (not triggered by anything changing). Add a single step to update the record, and in the workflow record update form you can set the necessary fields to be cleared.

    Activate the workflow, select your Contact records and run the workflow. Even though they are inactive, the workflow will be able to update them (this is true for lots of entities but not activities, Cases, and some other specific ones).

    De-activate the workflow after you have done the records you need, so it does not get used in error, but keep it around so you can re-activate it and use again later.

  • Suggested answer
    razdynamics Profile Picture
    razdynamics 17,308 User Group Leader on at

    Oops sorry J, Adam is correct you cannot use the bulk edit button on inactive records, However you can use Export to Excel, to Bulk Edit or clear the sensitive fields and Re-import will effectively Bulk Edit those records. So to make this easy for you create an advanced find for your inactive records, add the columns you want to edit to to the view and save as a personal view. Then when you select this view you can Click Export to excel, select static worksheet option, and once you have bulk edited the exported sheet, you can click import Data button and this will update the existing records with the updated values :)  

  • BharatPremji Profile Picture
    BharatPremji 2,485 on at

    Hi J,

    Have you tried using the Kingsway connector for SSIS?

    http://www.kingswaysoft.com/products/ssis-integration-toolkit-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm

    With this you will be able to connect to your CRM Online instance and update the fields on the contact record without re-activating the record.  I have just tested it on a couple of inactive records.

    Feel free to reach out if you need any assistance with the tool

    Bharat

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    I'm a huge fan of Kingsway, but it doesn't seem that it can update all kinds of deactivated records.  I can't update orders or invoices that are inactive.  I was able to update opportunities that were inactive though.

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