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Sample Data Generator Series - Part 1: Overview of Generating Sample Data for Dynamics CRM

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Sivakumar Venkataraman - Click for blog homepageI have long been wondering if we can build a logic to generate some sample data for Dynamics CRM. The sample data which gets installed with Dynamics CRM is very little and this does not help much especially when you have a requirement to present dashboards in CRM (or) demonstrate Power BI capabilities in Dynamics CRM. These functionalities are better demonstrated with quite a bit of data which can be well represented on dashboards and KPIs.

I was researching a little to find out if there were any articles (or) blogs which shared some insight regarding this and I came across the CRM Pre-Sales “Top Tips” Part 1 - Demo Data blog article by Simon Hutson. I would like to thank Simon for his efforts on this template, which made my life easier and helped me come out with this series of articles.

In this blog, he provides excel templates which can be used to generate some sample data which can be readily imported into Dynamics CRM. I have tested it with Dynamics CRM 2013 and later and it worked pretty well. However, the data in the sample template was more related to UK locale.

Hence I decided to tweak it a little bit and come out with a Americas version of the same template which can be imported into any Dynamics CRM environment with a US locale.

I am going to be posting a series of articles which give insight into how to utilize this template to generate sample data and also tips and tricks on the sample data which you can manipulate for your business requirements.

  • Sample Data Generator Series - Part 1: Overview of Generating Sample Data for Dynamics CRM
  • Sample Data Generator Series - Part 2: Ready to Use Sample Data Files for Dynamics CRM & How to Use It
  • Sample Data Generator Series - Part 3: Understanding the Sample Data Generator Template
  • Sample Data Generator Series - Part 4: Predefined Data Map Files for the Sample Data Imports
  • Sample Data Generator Series - Part 5: Tips & Tricks To Be Kept In Mind During Sample Data Generation/Import

In this article I have provided information about the files which can be downloaded for this purpose. The following files can be downloaded from the link here.

  • The Data Generator Excel File
  • Data Maps which have the predefined mapping for these import zip files.
  • Zip Files which has predefined sample data (ready to use)

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In the next article, I will provide some insight into the sample data generator template and how to tweak it for your requirements.

Please note that the data in the sample files and the ones generated by the generator template are random data for demonstration purposes. This file is not covered under Microsoft support. This is an opensource template which can be modified to suit your demonstration requirements.

Happy Importing!!!

Update History:

# 1: 2017/07/31 - The OneDrive file sharing link has been updated to a new link. The old link broke, as I had restructured the OneDrive folder.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2016
    Great work! Have you removed the sample data files from the OneDrive link? Also, is this sample data applicable to Dynamics CRM 2016?
    • Anonymous
      July 31, 2017
      New link has been posted and yes it works with Dynamics CRM 2016.
  • Anonymous
    August 31, 2016
    Link no longer works
  • Anonymous
    August 31, 2016
    Hi, the link to the files no longer work. Is it possible to please repost these?
  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2016
    Cannot download the files.. it says the link is wrong..Any other source to download them?
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2017
    Seems that the link is broken, does anyone has another link to the files?Thanks - Javier
  • Anonymous
    July 31, 2017
    Apologies for the delayed response. Here is the updated link. The article has been updated as well.https://1drv.ms/f/s!AinGbAljxJV0paI0krIpPtXtIIT1IA