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How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011

Post Author: Joe D365 |

Ever want to do mass updates to Opportunities in CRM but many of the records that need to be updated are closed? Well, it's easy to do with CRM 2011's "Make this data available for re-importing" feature!

Why would you want to mass update closed Opportunities in CRM 2011? One reason is that you may want to remove an option set value. You can't simply delete it without leaving the field blank on the closed records, so it needs to be mapped to another value.

If you want to learn more about the Data Import Wizard before proceeding, check out these other posts:

Ready to update some records?

  1. Create an Advanced Find view for the records that need to be updated. In this example, we can see that "no response" and "no decision" are really telling us the same thing, so we want to change all the "no response" values to "no decision" and remove "no response" from the option set.

    bulk update closed opportunities in CRM 2011

  2. Run the Advanced Find query and then press the How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011 button on the ribbon.
  3. In the resulting dialog box, check "Make this data available for re-importing by including required column headings and press the Export button. (Note: If your query returns more than one page, the dialog box will have an option to export all rows from all pages. Also select this option.)

    How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011

  4. Save and Open the file in Excel.

    How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011

  5. Edit the column that needs to be updated. In this example, we are changing the Status Reason from No Response to No Decision. Because this is an option set in CRM, it is an option set in Excel as well.

    How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011
    How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011

  6. Save the changes in Excel. You will receive the following alert. Press "Yes" to continue.

    How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011

  7. On the Opportunity list view, press the Import Data button on the ribbon.

    How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011

  8. In the Upload Data File dialog box, browse for the file and press Next and then Submit. The records will be updated.

In our scenario, we also needed to then go back and remove the discontinued value from the Option Set so it would not be available for future selection, and then we were done.

Need more information on Option Sets? Check out When to use a Global Option Set vs a Custom entity.

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.

6 comments on “How to Mass Update Closed Opportunities in CRM 2011”

  1. i have tried this and at the re-import data point i receive an error "The records were not updated because the following Microsoft Dynamics CRM fileds were not found: Probability" now i can confirm this field is there but it refuses to work i tried reselecting the Value from the drop down list avaliable in the field within Excel i even tried an alternate value but with the same response. Any help is greatly appreciated.

  2. Hi Joe! This is the best information I've found on this topic so far. Any chance there is an updated post for CRM 2013? Thanks!

  3. HELP! I have just worked on 7000 records and CRM tells me my file is not in XML 2003 BUT IT IS!

  4. This approach does not seem to work for cases/incidents. Do you happen to know a solution for cases/incidents without having to open them and close them again which would change the close date.

  5. Hi! I've added a new field to an Opportunity and would like to copy the existing data in another field to this new field. Both fields are lookups.

    I was able to do this on Open Opportunities by doing mass edits in the Opportunity view. However, it won't let me on Closed Opportunities. Any suggestions or ways around this? Do you think the export/import scenario you've described above will work in my scenario?

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