Skyvia: Backup Your Data via The Sky

In my previous post, I was talking about Skyvia as my introduction part. As we know Skyvia is a product to help the data integration and backup in the cloud, now let’s talk first about the backup.

Since my blog is particularly purposed to Dynamics CRM-all about, so here I want to research its capability in term of CRM Backup and write every single step here, and yes, I try it on CRM Online! (As we know it is not possible for us to do backup CRM Online by ourselves without the favor from Microsoft Team).

Steps

1. Sign up and Login

Now, I have been logged in here:



2. Create a New Connection





Select the Dynamics CRM (for those who are not CRM Users, don’t worry, there are plenty other options)

3. Fill up The Connection Configuration Form and Test Connection, then Save it.



4. Go to Backup



5. Create New Backup Package, Select Connection



6. Select your Object to Backup

Well, to backup, you need to choose what Object you want to Backup, so it is Object-Based Backup.
This is very useful if you want to backup partial data that is very important.



7. Now, I want to Backup Account and Contact



8.Not only that, when you click the ‘edit’ you can perform more.



You can filter to not backup all Fields and can Filter by Condition.

And you can perform grouping: And, Or, and Xor (maybe more powerful than the Advance Find )



But, now I don’t want to play around with this, I just want to backup all.

9. Setup Schedule

As usual Database Backup Task, we can set a schedule or just make it as one time only.





I make it as One-Time only in my research.



10. Now Back to the Top and Save it.



11. Backup is in Progress…

You can see the status here and you can also Force Backup Now if you already schedule it later but you want to have it immediately



Scrolling down, later you can se the Records and also the History of the Backup



*History in Calendar View



12. You can Create Multiple Backup Packages



Just wait, it’s about 30 minutes waiting

Now I can get the Report



That’s all the steps to backup your database.

Backup Method

Where is it stored?

According to the Engineer, Jacob Martin

Backed up data is stored in a secure Azure Geo-redundant storage (GRS), and these data are always available for viewing and restoring.

Can we Download the Data?

Skyvia allows downloading backed up data as CSV files. It does not allow downloading them as a database. However, you can view all the backed up data in the browser, filter and search them, and restore them in a couple of clicks.

What’s Next

The question now is what’s next? Is that just a backup? No, actually you can perform Update, Insert, and Delete from the selected Backup

Skyvia Backup Features (Update, Insert, Delete)

As mentioned before, this is not only just backup and that’s all. No. It is like a snapshot, imagine you are running Virtual Machine, then something happened, it gets crashed, you can just recover it all.
Now, imagine in the CRM if you accidently delete or update a record, can you undo it?
You can recover it, but you need the Audit history and recover it programmatically, which is for end users it is not recommended.

Skyvia as The Snapshot-er

Recover the Deleted Records

Back to CRM and I delete one of the Account record



As we can see, there is a confirmation box and also warning box as caveats to us to re-think again before we delete any record, because WE CAN”T UNDO THIS ACTION.

And Again…Another box comes up.



Now back to the Skyvia backup and then select the backup that we have performed before.

Search the data



Now, back to the left side, scroll left horizontally and then tick the selected record



It will open the ‘Restore’ account

Now, just click the ‘Insert Records’

Restore is in progress….





Restored Result



You can get the report, 1 record has been Restored, now let’s back to CRM.

And we search the record..



The record is successfully restored! Saved the day.

Undo the Changes

We learned how this Skyvia helps us to re-insert the deleted record.

Now, back to CRM and the users suddenly change the City and State to incorrect value, Sydney and DKI Jakarta



Now, I want to undo the changes

I go back to Skyvia and then perform the Update



Undo Result



Then back to CRM



The Address is back to its original value!

Delete Record

Now we want to delete the record in CRM easily, you can just delete from its snapshot.

I want to delete Brian Burke



We know we can delete it from CRM UI, but let’s try to delete from Skyvia.



Now no more Brian Burke in CRM



You can later recover it back.

History of Actions

Overall

Strengths:

- This is very useful for restoring data, undo changes, and delete just from the snapshot as long as you have the backup (of course)
- All the actions are performed in very simple steps with fancy UI
- Definitely No need to have programmatically knowledge
- No effort to create Integration environment, because all-in-one in Cloud
- Every single actions are stored and you can see in the History
As usual, there is no perfect product, so it still has Limitations

Limitations:
- Simple logic only, you can just search the record by keyword, so far no complex logic
- Restoring is object by object, can be positive for particular data (no hassle), but negative for big data
- The restored records concept is using Insert, so it will use the New GUID, so that you will lose the first Guid, lose the relationship as well
- Same concept with previous one, the ‘created on’ field will have today value, not the original ‘created on’ field

Thanks and stay tune in the next post!

Skyvia Review: Riding Your Data Via The Sky

Nowadays, Cloud is our new trend, even, now, we cannot live without dealing with the Internet and ‘the Sky’. Even our beloved CRM Product, SharePoint, and other technologies are hosted in the Cloud, helping us to reduce our pain in taking care our Infrastructure investment. Now, the problem is we need to do backup and integration, imagine in CRM Online, we cannot just perform backup and restore like what we always do in our onPremise SQL Database. In term of Integration, we already knew some tools, such as OOB CRM Export Import Wizard, SSIS + its Connector, Scribe, etc.

You have entrust your Data in the cloud, now do you ever imagine that you want to have a solution for backup and integration also in the cloud?

To avoid any other Integration investment, luckily, there is Devart who developed a sky tool, with the name ‘Skyvia’ and one of the man behind this tool introduced it to me personally, so now I would like to give it a try and write the review of their product. This product can integrate various sources to various targets, not only CRM to CRM and it is supported by its attractive User Interface.

For my first impression, I am impressed by its User Interface, it is simple, flat, but fancy and colorful, and it is easy.

What is Skyvia?

Well, its slogan can tell what it does and what it is. It is new era of ETL Tool, all in the cloud!

Integrate, back up, access, and manage your cloud data
with our all-in-one cloud service!

What are Skyvia Features?

Yes, it is not only ETL Tool.

What are The Supported Connectors?

Skyvia supports several Worldwide CRM Products, Database, Online Storage, and also FTP.
Imagine, it’s all can be connected together.

How to Get Started?

As per mentioned before, it is a sky-based solution, it does need any other tool investment, just register here:
https://app.skyvia.com/register

And start your Sky Journey via Skyvia

How Much????

Well, for all of those features, I should have told you in front, currently, IT IS FREE…Yes, it is….At least until today it is free.
You can start now while it’s free and then visit their website for pricing changes HERE

Overall

It is very easy-to-use tool to perform backup and integration, for more complicated logic you might still need SSIS or Scribe, however, considering its price and its stand-alone software in the cloud, it is powerful to integrate data and also help you to backup your Online Data, while you don’t need to call Microsoft or Other Product Team just to backup your pieces of very important Data, want to prove it? Just Sign Up.

In the next post I will write about Skyvia Functionality, not just Introduction as wrote in this post.

Thanks.

CRM Mail Merge Tips: How to Enable CRM Add-in Without Installing CRM for Outlook Connector

As we know that we can do ‘Mail Merge’ in CRM.

Then you just perform the ‘Mail Merge’ action from the ribbon for the Quote record then you download the Word file.

After that you download and open the Word file, you realize that you read this section…

Then if in this case you cannot see the CRM button, you are probably facing the same problem with me right now, because I can’t see this icon.

*As we can see, in the ‘Mailings’ tab, there is no CRM button appearing.

Solution

You can try to download the CRM for Outlook Client, it will add the Mail Merge functionality, some add-in that make you will be able to click this CRM button.

It will add the template inside this folder..

“C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates”

But, now, I am in kind of hurry, I don’t have enough time to download the installer, install it, and then configure it, what should I do?

A quick tips as a core from this blog post is basically you can just download the template from this URL:

http://CRMServer:Port/_static/Tools/MailMerge/CRMTemplate.dotm

Example:

http://192.168.1.108:5555/_static/Tools/MailMerge/CRMTemplate.dotm

*For CRM Online you just change the IP and Port using your CRM URL just before the /_static/….

After that, you just download the Template and then go to the Options here in your MS Word App.

Just follow the steps above.

And then click Go…

Then attach here:

Change the location to your template location.

Then OK.

And here is the result

Result

*As we can see, there is the CRM button, the button that we have been waiting for to come in.

Note

You need to enable Editing + Macro to make it works.

Another tips, you can store the template to this location:

So that every time you open the File Location, it will be redirected by default to this location and you can just choose the CRMTemplate.

This is a shortcut, fast way to do ‘Mail Merge’ without installing CRM for Outlook Client.

Hope this helps!

Thanks.

Can’t Mapping Campaign Response Fields to Lead in CRM

As we know that we can convert Campaign Response to create new lead easily.



Then it will open new Lead form which is you need to fill the completion, but it does some fields mapped by default, such as Subject, Company name, Last Name, etc.

But, the problem here, what if I want to copy other fields? Other new field, or even existing fields such as Promotion Code?

The first time, I was thinking about mapping, like what CRM did for the fields like Subject, CRM has existing mapping, but in fact, you cannot modify it by default.

It is connected by Related Campaign Response field.





As we can see, no Mapping could be edited here.

So, the second time I was thinking to use workflow.

I did create the workflow:



I want to copy Promotion Code from Campaign Response to Lead description.



I thought everything will be okay after I create this workflow.

So, I convert the Response to Lead.

But, in fact, after I convert it to Lead, I still have to Save first in order to make the workflow working, it’s different from CRM Opportunity to Quote that will automatically create the Quote directly, no matter what.

However, after I save it, the mapping still doesn’t work.

After I check the Log, it was because the Related Campaign Response field in the Lead was blank and did not get mapped at all.



I check the Advanced Find, no data for Lead with Related Campaign Response containing data.

Then, I try to put it to the Lead Form.

It turns out that this field is never been unlocked.



And it never have any value on it, so that I think it’s a flaw/bug that the Lead in fact has no relationship with the Response at all, what if we want to know, which Response is becoming the Lead original source?

I did try to unlock it using Business Rule, but no luck.

I have submitted to this Microsoft Connect.

https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions/feedback/details/1162506/related-campaign-response-field-is-not-mapped-when-converting-campaign-response-to-lead
Kindly you help me to vote it up.

So, I‘ve been thinking to use another workaround. I realized that I could edit mapping from Opportunity Product to Quote Product even though the mapping is not editable through OOB UI.

So here are my steps:

1. Get the Mapping ID

If you are using CRM 2015 you can try to get the mapping ID and follow this instruction:
http://inogic.com/blog/2012/12/add-mapping-for-custom-attribute-of-order-product-to-invoice-product/
http://www.stellarise.com/insight/mapping-custom-fields-on-the-opportunity-product-entity-to-the-quote-product-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011/#.VPhdX_mUf0w

Or I can put the steps here:

*For CRM Online, you can obtain the mapping ID through:

To get the mapping Id you can hit this URL:
https://mycrmonlineorg.crm5.dynamics.com/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc/EntityMapSet?$select=EntityMapId&$filter=TargetEntityName eq ‘lead’ and SourceEntityName eq ‘campaignresponse’

So will get the mapping Guid.


*For OnPremise, you can use above method or use this SQL query to get the mapping ID:

SELECT EntityMapId
FROM EntityMapBase
WHERE TargetEntityName='lead' AND SourceEntityName='campaignresponse'

So will get the Mapping Id



Now copy the ‘88F8FF60-DEC3-E311-9408-001CC4EECDD6’


And paste to this pattern of URL:

http://mycrmserver/Tools/SystemCustomization/Relationships/Mappings/mappingList.aspx?mappingId=<guid_of_the_mapping_id_you_get_from_previous_step>

Will become:

http://mycrmserver/Tools/SystemCustomization/Relationships/Mappings/mappingList.aspx?mappingId=88F8FF60-DEC3-E311-9408-001CC4EECDD6



Now, you can see the list of existing mapping.

Please, create new One.

I create new one for the Promotion Code Name.

*Remember for the Mapping, make sure that both fields are in the same date type, the target field should not have less length allowed compared to the source field, then for Option set make sure it is an Option Set, otherwise it will fail.



Then, to make sure, please Publish All Customizations.





But, the result..



Still I cannot get the Promotion Code to be mapped to the Lead.

I guess because there is no direct relationship because in the Lead we cannot get any related Campaign Response.

So that would be not working as well.

Overall, you cannot use Workflow for this mapping as well.

So the possibilities here:

1. Either customize the Convert ribbon, copy it and creating new one with your own dialog or control.

2. Create new relationship between Campaign Response and Lead then you create the new mappings, and you can create the Lead through subgrid or associated view

3. Utilize the mapped fields, such as Subject, First Name, Last Name, Description to get get the Campaign Response source and then use workflow or plugin or javascript to get fields from the original Campaign Response. You need to query to get the exact Campaign Response.

If you have any other suggestion, I will be so happy.

Thank you!