Uploading files from the file server using Scribe

The Challenge
You need to upload files from a file server into CRM. A good example of this requirement might be if you're migrating from another CRM system where attachments to CRM entities are stored directly on the file system and referenced from the CRM records rather than being stored as a blob directly in the database as is the case with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. When a file is already stored as a blob in the database, the conversion is fairly straight forward. But how do you about uploading files that are stored on the file server as attachments to MSCRM records?



The Solution
Fortunately the solution is also pretty straight forward if you have the option of using Scribe for migration. As a picture is worth a thousand words, I will illustrate it with a screenshot:

In short, all you need to do is to map to the "annotation" entity and ensure that:

• isdocument = 1
• vfAttachmentFileName = path of the file on the file server

And that should pretty much do the trick.