Bulk Export Tool Tip

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<www.codeplex.com/mscrmbulkdataexport>

Eric recently blogged on the Bulk Export Tool available from CodePlex.

blogs.msdn.com/dynamicscrmonline/archive/2008/04/30/bulk-data-export-tool.aspx

This is a well written and very easy to use tool to get data out of CRM Online.  There's a slight nuance to using the Bulk Export tool, it used Unicode file encoding and it creates  few extra characters when it writes the first line. This is known as the byte order mark ( msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms776429(VS.85).aspx ).

The result is that opening the export file in Excel can result in all the headings to be contained in a single cell. Ditto for the data rows. In addition, the import wizard and the Data Migration Manager may have problems with it also. I had a devil of a time trying to build a map until I realized what was going on.

The best solution:

Download the source code and change the file encoding type to ASCII. Look in the file, FileHelper.cs, sub routine, ExportCSV. Change the encoding type and rebuild.

or the hack

I was able to 'fix' the file by changing the first two bytes of the file to 0's. The are initially ff fe. This caused parsing errors. The file is still encoded as unicode but it missing the byte order mark.

You can download many free hex or binary editors. I used NotePad++. ( load file, menu item - PlugIns-HexEditior.

-cheers