Import a Dynamics Organisation v8 to a v9 Installation

Ahmed Sawalhy • March 10, 2019
Importing an organisation from Dynamics CRM v8 to v9 can be a bit troublesome. You might face strange errors like the ones below. Fortunately, in this article, I compiled a list of possible issues and their solutions.
SQL Assembly Error
First issue you might face is a SQL assembly error. It looks something similar to this:
The solution is to install the following four packages:
- System CLR Types x86: link
- System CLR Types x64: link
- Shared Management Objects x86: link
- Shared Management Objects x64: link
Marketing Solution Error
After fixing the issue above, you might get something similar to the following:
The workaround is to edit the ImportConfig.xml file at:
Open the file and comment the following line:
Full-text Indexing Errors
You might faced this error only when importing the same DB after the above failed attempts. Importing on a clean restored DB did not produce that error for me.
To resolve the issue, delete the full text indexing from the following tables:
- ColumnMappingBase
- PrivilegeBase
- ImportEntityMappingBase
- ImportMapBase
- WebWizardBase
- TransformationParameterMappingBase
To remove a full-text index: in Object Explorer, right-click the table, select Delete Full-Text Index.
Important Note
The above issues are not the only ones you might face, of course. Hence, to avoid hair-pulling moments, after every failed attempt, you must import again on a clean restored DB; otherwise, you will face strange errors that are hard to resolve.
In addition, workarounds can cause unpredictable issues; you must retest your whole solution to make sure it works as expected.