I spoke with a Microsoft Senior Support Engineer in Seattle on Friday (this was a Microsoft guy, not a Wipro person). He basically said too bad, so sad, sorry if it makes you mad......he didn't really say that, but he did say it is a known issue, but the fix didn't make it into the September release.
He didn't promise when it would be forthcoming, and he didn't promise that the exports would no longer have the 3 superfluous (unless you are re-importing - to which I replied, the % of people that reimport has to be very minimal, so why not revert and let that small % hit the old check box) columns of data. To my this implies that business as usual processes that are in place will need to change to suit Microsoft's whim. Not a very good customer satisfaction position IMHO.
While I had him on the phone, I asked why they can't fix the fact that you have to change a setting every time you export to include ALL records in a view, not just the # you have on a page.....that one baffles me - if you create a view you must want all the records.....oh well
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Mark Sampson
VP of Sales Operations
Trillium Software, Inc.
Burlington, MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-24-2015 03:51 PM
From: Mark Sampson
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
While we are bemoaning the "new" (and improved?!?! I guess not) functionality of Advanced Find, I still wonder why we have to check a box that says "all records" during export rather than that being the default, with an option to download only a page worth.
P.S. I doubt "they" are listening...
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Mark Sampson
VP of Sales Operations
Trillium Software, Inc.
Burlington, MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-24-2015 01:34 PM
From: Alan Smith
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
We had unplanned system maintenance on our production and sandbox instances of CRM Online last night and now show this version info - (7.0.2.45) (DB 7.0.2.45). We use Excel 2010, FYI.
Previously (yesterday) we showed (7.0.2.35) (DB 7.0.1.247) in our production instance.
We'd had a separate issue of NOT being able to export at all to static worksheets, but that issue is corrected. Of course now we're seeing these same issues you've all reported with copy/paste and general usability from these static or dynamic worksheets coming out of CRM.
The workaround of having to save the exported worksheet to your computer, close it, then re-open the worksheet seems to help but is confusing and time consuming for our users. What was once easy and quick is now confusing and slow. Plus of course we don't have an explanation for WHY this is happening.
Another "feature" of these new Excel exports is that the data is formatted as an Excel table. This prevents the user from quickly manipulating data columns in some (not all) ways. E.g. you are prevented from selecting multiple non-contiguous columns of data when you want to delete those columns from the spreadsheet. [We use some shared views and all columns aren't needed every time.] You can turn this off by highlighting your returned data; then click on the Table Tools menu group; click on "convert to range" in the Tools group. Doing that then puts you back at square one to allow more normal operation of the saved spreadsheet.
I spun up a CRM Online 2015 Update 1 30-day trial instance to see how this all behaved and it seems to work pretty much the same as what we're seeing with the latest "non Update 1" version of CRM. Same Excel-table formatted data, same copy/paste error. I've only quickly tried a few things with it, but so far, behaves just the same.
Microsoft, are you hearing this conversation? Anyone going to the CRMUG conference able to bring it up to the MS folks there? Anyone know the direct contact info for the product manager involved in this aspect of CRM?
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Alan Smith
Member Services and IT Manager
Oregon Nurses Association
Tualatin OR
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-24-2015 08:14 AM
From: Mark Sampson
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
HAHA Malcom - great post - let's keep it light.
So I had to raise a ticket with Microsoft Support (misnomer?) and after sharing my screen twice and explaining the problem three times, I was told this is a known issue that will be corrected in the next release, but I wasn't told when to expect the fix to be applied......I also wonder how they will fix it - what will it look like.
Thanks for nothing.
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Mark Sampson
VP of Sales Operations
Trillium Software, Inc.
Burlington, MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-23-2015 10:35 AM
From: Eva Sandvik
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
Boy howdy, there seems to be a LOT of "Planned Maintenance" all of a sudden, isn't there?
We are also receiving this in our Production environment, but not in our sandbox... Which seems backasswards to me. But what do I know?
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Eva Sandvik
Senior Access Control Analyst
SCMG Connect
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-22-2015 08:30 AM
From: Cindy Simonides
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
Well, sometimes you have to laugh or you'll cry your eyes out, right?
Since I posted, that workaround doesn't always work the same way - lately the A-C (hidden) columns still contain those tags, although I could swear they were removed the first few times I did it. But it does still allow me to copy/paste and otherwise manipulate the worksheet, which is the desired outcome.
Today I got a notification that there will be another "Planned" (by whom??) system maintenance this weekend, in which we'll have 60 minutes downtime. I'm hoping this is the fix for this recently introduced bug, but hard to know since there are no release notes included.
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Cindy Simonides
Vice President
ITG
Boston MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-21-2015 08:41 AM
From: Mark Sampson
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
I must have the Monday Morning giggles, or something.....I laughed out loud at this:
"I will say we found a workaround b/c you cannot copy/paste from the export anymore, which is driving my users nuts. You have to open the export in Excel, save it, close it and open it again to copy/paste - once you do that, columns A-D are normal data and no longer the re-importable tags from the fresh export and you can copy/paste as desired"
I didn't laugh at you or the post, I laughed at the fact that Microsoft strikes again, that work around is both a mouth full and a lot of mouse clicks.....
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Mark Sampson
VP of Sales Operations
Trillium Software, Inc.
Burlington, MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-18-2015 10:57 AM
From: Cindy Simonides
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
Hi all,
We discovered this on Monday. We had "Planned System Maintenance" that was not supposed to disrupt us applied to our Online 2015 environment on Saturday morning and this behavior was detected after that. This update (Update 0.2 because we are not on Update 1 yet) was NOT supposed to affect the Excel export at all from the notes provided (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3075889 ), but it did. It also affected us in several other ways, unfortunately...
But regarding the excel export from Advanced Find, we have noticed that what they did was fix it so exporting actually creates an .xlsx file instead of an .htm file that you have to save in Excel format, and they also did away with the XML re-importable file in favor of embedding hidden columns (similar to what you get when you export a re-importable file) into a regular export. I definitely think this is to enable the export to Excel Online in O365, but it's applied way too early for us, since we don't have Update 1 yet and can't enable Excel Online.
I will say we found a workaround b/c you cannot copy/paste from the export anymore, which is driving my users nuts. You have to open the export in Excel, save it, close it and open it again to copy/paste - once you do that, columns A-D are normal data and no longer the re-importable tags from the fresh export and you can copy/paste as desired. Hope this helps, but if anyone hears of a fix for this bug, we are eager to receive.
Here's the article we found indicating this is a bug and providing the workaround: New Excel Extract formatting is behaving strangely
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Cindy Simonides
Vice President
ITG
Boston MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-17-2015 08:43 AM
From: Malcolm McAuley
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
Sorry, I must have skipped right over that part of your email Geoff (more coffee required)!
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Malcolm McAuley
Director, Information Systems
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada
Burlington
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-16-2015 02:33 PM
From: Geoff Ables
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
Hi Mark,
We noticed this too. This changed in 2015 UR1 as part of, I believe, the better integration with Excel Online. Problem is, as you've experienced, some people copy/paste data from exported Excel spreadsheets as a part of a business process.
Here's the workaround:
* You can export to a Static Worksheet (second option in the export drop-down) - as long as you have only 1 page of records (since this feature now works with only 1 page at a time).
* You can sometimes (maybe always, I haven't fully tested this) open it in Excel Online (first option under export), and then be very careful to start from the right and highlight only the columns that are displayed (columns A-C are hidden) and then copy/paste. The hidden columns (which preserve the connection to CRM records) seem to be the culprits.
* You can export to a dynamic worksheet, save as a CSV, then open the CSV and copy/paste will work.
Hope one of those options will work for you.
In my view this is a bug - but I've not done any research to see if it is on the active list of items Microsoft is working on.
Geoff
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Geoff Ables
C5 Insight
704-895-2500
Geoff.Ables@C5Insight.com
http://blogs.c5insight.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-16-2015 01:55 PM
From: Mark Sampson
Subject: Weird Advanced Find Functionality
Does anyone know if something has changed with exporting records identified using Advanced Find?
Just yesterday, I started getting column filters in Excel when I export records from an Advanced Find. If that wasn't bad enough, when I try to copy the rows of data to a different tab or different file altogether, I get an error message that Excel can't complete the request.
What gives? Is there some sort of global setting that changes how this works? If so, is there a way to see who changed the setting?
As always, thanks for your help!!
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Mark Sampson
VP of Sales Operations
Trillium Software, Inc.
Burlington, MA
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