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Creating Monthly Goals in Bulk via Importing

Post Author: Joe D365 |

Have you ever run across a solution that requires goals to be created every month within Dynamics CRM? If you have, then you know that recreating these goals on the first of every month, one by one, can become time consuming. Using "waiting" workflows create goals can become an inefficient use of CRM resources. In this blog we'll discuss an easy alternative for using Excel to import these goals in bulk using the following steps.

  1. Setting up your goals
  2. Creating your spreadsheet
  3. Importing goals from a spreadsheet

Let's get started!

Setting Up Your Goals

Let's pose a hypothetical scenario. Let's say you want to utilize goals for tracking the number of phone calls completed by each user each month, with the target being 1,000 calls a month. You have 50 users and the idea of setting up 50 phone call goals individually is an inefficient use of your time.

Before we go any further, some steps to this process need to already be in place. For starters, any Rollup Fields need to be setup in order to be used correctly for the appropriate Goal Metric (which should also setup properly). A common scenario for this example would be to have a Parent Goal to rollup totals for each month. This Parent Goal would need to be created prior to importing a spreadsheet of our 50 phone call goals, aka Child Goals.

Some things to note of this Parent Goal as it interacts with our Child Goal spreadsheet creation:

  • Goal Metric used must be the same Metric Type (Count in our example) for all goals—Parent and Child Goals
  • Custom Period regulation of From and To need to be consistent between Parent and Child Goals to warrant correct setup and rollup
  • Target needs to be manually populated as it does not automatically rollup based on the Child Goals placed under this Parent Goal
  • For proper Child Goal rollup, ensure that Goal Criteria is set accordingly (see below)

     

     

 

 

 

 

Creating Your Spreadsheet

We are now ready to create our spreadsheet of 50 goals. Fields to be included, along with some notes:

  • Name – unique
  • Goal Owner – user that exists
  • Target
  • Goal Metric – metric must exist
  • Parent Goal – goal must exist
  • From *
  • To *
  • Metric Type *
  • Goal Period Type* – Custom for this monthly example
  • Manager – user that exists

* Must match that of its Parent Goal

When formatting the columns for this data, all fields can be General with the exception of From and To, which will need to be Date. A big advantage of creating goals in bulk like this comes within Excel's abilities to Copy and Paste, as well as Find and Replace. When your spreadsheet looks accurate and complete, save it as a CSV (comma delimited) file:

Importing Goals from a Spreadsheet

Next, import into your CRM as usual using the Import Data Wizard. Map to Goals, which brings to you to mapping the fields individually. The wizard does most of the dirty work here by matching up the correct source and CRM fields. The exception for this example would the Target field, which we want to be an integer for phone call count, as opposed to a decimal or money.

And just like that, you have created multiple goals in Dynamics CRM using a much more time efficient process. Note that the goals will need to be recalculated to see results. And if you are feeling really ambitious (we know you are out there), you could create goals for months and months out in advance! Now, head off into the sunset and set those goals.

Happy CRM'ing!

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

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