How to upgrade to Dynamics CRM 2011 by creating entities from customized in Dynamics CRM 4.0

By - July 30, 2013

Recently I ran into an issue with a solution import failure for a customer that was trying to move a solution that consisted of the contact and lead forms. This Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation was originally Dynamics CRM 4.0 and was upgraded to Dynamics CRM 2011 a while back. When we tried to import the solution into the testing and production environments where we received an error that said “The lookup field values do not match”.  We tried a host of different things, even creating the field that was causing the error in the staging and production environments but still had no luck.

There is a tool available called the OrgDBOrgSettingsTool when you download the Update Rollups for Dynamics CRM 2011.  This is an interesting tool that is provided by Microsoft to manipulate some of the advanced functions in the database.  The one that we were interested in was the “LookupNameMatchesDuringImport” function. 

For a complete list of functions see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2691237

Essentially a lookup field on the lead form was causing an issue due to the upgrade from Dynamics CRM 4.0 to Dynamics CRM 2011 and even though the names were identical, the database did not think they matched.

To run the OrgDBOrgSettings Tool you must be a deployment administrator on the target environment and have access to the server.  The easiest way to check if you are a deployment administrator is to open the Deployment Manager on the server for CRM.  If everything opens successfully then you should not have any problems.

To run the tool you need to do the following:

1. Login to the CRM Application Server for the environment that is having the issue

2. Download or copy over the OrgDBOrgSettings Tool

3. Extract the Tool because by default it comes in a zipped format

4. Open the folder that has the extracted files

  • Look for the OrgDBOrgSettingsTool.exe.config File
  • Right Click this file and open it with any text editor
  • This file is very important because you must change the URL’s and a few others options for your specific deployment (Below are the main settings you need to change for On-Premise)

5. applicationSettings>

6. <OrgDBOrgSettingsTool.Properties.Settings>

7. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_CrmService_CrmService” serializeAs=”String”>

8. <!— Please change CrmServer to your Crm Server Name –>

9. <value>http://CRMServer:5555/MSCrmServices/2007/CrmService.asmx</value>

10. </setting>

11. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_CrmDiscoveryService_CrmDiscoveryService”

12. serializeAs=”String”>

13. <!— Please change CrmServer to your Crm Server Name –>

14. <value>http://CRMServer:5555/XrmServices/2011/Discovery.svc</value>

15. </setting>

16. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_SKU” serializeAs=”String”>

17. <!— Possible values here are Online/SPLA/OnPrem –>

18. <value>OnPrem</value>

19. </setting>

20. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_UserName” serializeAs=”String”>

21. <!— Please change the value below to your email Id/User Name for Online / SPLA –>

22. <value>administrator</value>

23. </setting>

24. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_Domain” serializeAs=”String”>

25. <value>CONTOSO</value>

26. </setting>

27. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_OrgServiceUri” serializeAs=”String”>

28. <value>http://CRMServer:5555/{0}/XrmServices/2011/Organization.svc</value>

29. </setting>

30. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_RegistrationEndPointUri” serializeAs=”String”>

31. <value></value>

32. </setting>

33. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_Partner” serializeAs=”String”>

34. <!— This is applicable only for Online –>

35. <value></value>

36. </setting>

37. <setting name=”OrgDBOrgSettingsTool_Environment” serializeAs=”String”>

38. <!— This is applicable only for Online –>

39. <value></value>

40. </setting>

41. </OrgDBOrgSettingsTool.Properties.Settings>

42. </applicationSettings>

43. Save your changes and close the file

44. Right Click the command prompt and select “Run as Administrator”

45. Change directory to the folder that has the extracted OrgDBOrgSettingTool.exe

46. Then for my issue I ran the following command line – the syntax will be different depending on what command you need to run

  • Microsoft.Crm.SE.OrgDBOrgSettingsTool.exe Update /u <UniqueOrgName> LookupNameMatchesDuringImport True

47. You will most likely be prompted for authentication as it connects to the CRM Services

Once the tool is done, it will tell you if the update is successful or failed, and in our case,  we had no issues importing the solution. This is just one of the many uses for this tool and if used correctly it can save significant time when trying to resolve errors in CRM 2011.

If you are looking for assistance with your upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM,  contact our professionals via email at crm@mcgladrey.com or by phone at 855.437.7202.

By: John Annunziato – Pennsylvania Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner

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