With Microsoft CRM software, you don't need to re-enter data that you have stored in other applications such as a set of MS Excel spreadsheets or MS Word docs or even stored in MS Office Outlook emails. There are different ways of importing this data directly into your Microsoft CRM database, thereby saving you a great deal of time and energy.



One feature is the Bulk Import Wizard. This wizard imports your contacts, leads, accounts, marketing groups, and campaign responses data. It's an integral part of Microsoft CRM software and can be used on a routine, even daily, basis by someone in sales or marketing. Whichever user imports the data “owns” it.

This wizard is very useful for importing lists of leads that you have bought or gathered together through emails and telephone calls. You have to store the data in a CSV file or a .TXT file. The wizard can import the data into the Contact, Account, Campaign Response, and/or Lead areas of Microsoft CRM. You can also import any customized attributes to these areas. Accounts, leads, and contacts can be directly imported into a marketing group. One of the most common utilizations of the Bulk Import Wizard is to import data into Microsoft CRM from a purchased marketing list. Another one is to use the wizard to import contacts exported from Microsoft Outlook into a CSV file.

You cannot import attachments or notes with the Bulk Import Wizard. You can import related records such as a contact record that has to do with a specific account. However, However, tracking the relationship means that you must look up the unique identifier for the parent record in your Microsoft CRM before you import the record of relevance. So, if you have a lot of relevant records that you need to import, or if you feel the need to import notes or attachments, then you can use the Data Migration Framework.

With the Microsoft CRM Data Migration Framework, you will be using it when: records have to be assigned to different Microsoft CRM users; your data to be imported includes notes and attachments; the data includes a lot of relevant records; the data is coming from multiple sources; the data needs to be imported into applications other than Account, Lead, Contact, or Campaign Response; the source data was not created with a Microsoft Office program. You can use Data Migration Framework to import data into an array of other applications with Microsoft CRM including customized ones. The framework uses a staging database called the Common Data Format database. You collect all of the various data into the CDF, and then migrate it to the right places in CRM using a wizard.