How to copy the entire DB in CRM Dynamics?

Question

It seems to me as a wise idea to test run my workflow on a local server before deploying in at the customer's. To be entirely sure, I'd like to copy all the data from their DB to my test organization (I have full access rights). The problem is that I can't see any straightforward way to export the whole shabang to a XML Spreadsheet.

What's the best way to export/import everything from/to a DB? The source and the target servers are not the same.

Of course I've got the option of backing up the clients DB and restore it, would the brown stuff hit the fan, but it'll far more professional if I won't have to.

The client's DB is in the cloud, which makes me suspect that perhaps I won't be able to access it at all and as far I can see, there's no way to back-up the data there. Am I missing it or is it that bad?

Answer 1

James raises good points about the business aspects of your request, however to get hold of the record-level data there are few options. The easiest by far is a wholesale export and import of the underlying SQL database. (For the record, the alternative is to do a data migration from live into a different db but this is no small task so I won't even entertain that any further here).

You mention that the client is using CRM Online ("...client's DB is in the cloud..."). You can raise a (free) support request with CRM Online Support who will provide you with a copy of the YourOrg_MSCRM database which can then be reimported into an on-premise deployment.

Answer 2

I fully agree that would be sensible. Usually we have a number development and test servers for all our work, generally we do not exactly mirror the data in the client database however.

We create a representative sample of data in our dev servers and then just move across the Crm solution for deployment.

As far as I know there is not straight forward way to get all the data, if you really want to do this I would suggest taking a back up of their database and importing to yours.

(As a side note, not all clients are happy for copies of their database - especially if its a live system - to be taken off site. Personally if it is a live database I wouldn’t put that risk on yourself, if the data gets lost or leaked you might suffer the consequences).

Answer 3

If you wish to simply have a test instance that has a copy of the Microsoft CRM Online organization, Microsoft does provide a means to do that. Depending on how many professional user licenses that the customer has, this may be free, but could be an extra cost and both instances would count against the storage limit for Microsoft CRM Online. You can see full details here - https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmteamblog/archive/2014/03/20/introducing-sandbox-instances-in-crm-online.aspx . You can see steps on how to setup a sandbox instance here - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn467371.aspx "Add an instance to your subscription". This is something that I have used with one of our Microsoft CRM customers as it was a very good way to help validate the Scribe Online migration and customization changes we were making before moving those into production. The nice thing about doing it this way is that everything is still contained in the same Office 365 tenant and you can limit which users have access to the Sandbox organization, which is important for customers in knowing that their data is safe and not on some unknown server or machine.