New XrmToolBox plugin : Attribute Usage Inspector

A colleague of mine recently asked if it was possible to inspect data usage to determine which attributes are useless in a CRM 2016 organization because not filled with any value. My first answer was: no. I used to know a solution named CRM Data Detective that does the same but for CRM 4 and CRM 2011 only.

Ok, I was wrong and found out that a version for CRM 2015/2016 also exists.

Anyway, the major problem with this solution is the fact that if the entity you want to inspect has more records than the AggregateQueryRecordsLimit (which is 50,000 in CRM Online and cannot be updated), then you don’t get real usage statistics.

This plugin resolves this limitation by querying actual records instead of performing aggregation query (only if aggregation query fails because of the limit). This can impact performance but if you really needs it, you get it.

You can also export the result in a raw Excel file.

Here is a screenshot

image

As usual, please use the Plugins Store in XrmToolBox to get this plugin.

Happy inspection!

Comments

microsoft ax said…
Hello! Thank you so much for sharing the information about new XrmToolBox plugin. I'm a beginner in Microsoft Dynamics systems, so it's a little hard for me now to concentrate on more difficult tools and features, but I'll try to do my best :)
November 7, 2016 at 4:46 AM
Michal Micky said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
December 5, 2016 at 10:53 AM
Mark Chaffee said…
Sorry, But can you explain what the results actually mean? How is the % calculated?
June 23, 2017 at 5:24 PM
Tanguy said…
The percentage is the ratio or records that have a value for the attribute.
For example, an account name is almost always 100% whereas website might not often be filled and will have a lower percentage
June 23, 2017 at 5:27 PM
LyzzBeth said…
Hello, I'm trying to use the Attribute Usage Inspector on a large DB entity, but it keeps giving me statistics based on 1233 records only. Even if I change the settings, the maximum number of records per call is automatically set to 5k max but I still get statistics on 1k2 records only. Is it possible to configure the AUI tool to get statistics based on more records ?
I might have misunderstood but I thought it could manage to 50k records per entity. Otherwise, how are those statistics build ? Are they generated from the latest records or is it a random pick from the overall records ? Thanks a lot !
January 17, 2018 at 2:17 PM
Tanguy said…
Hi LyzzBeth,
Normally, AUI should be able to parse all records to get statistics (even if it might take time to do so)...

Is 1233 number seems specific to some kind of records?
January 17, 2018 at 2:28 PM
Unknown said…
I have the same question - I have well over 200k records, but the statistics is only basing the % on 63, or 3, or what seems like some other random number.

Ideas anyone?
March 2, 2018 at 9:16 AM
Tanguy said…
There is clearly no random number of records analyzed. Maybe some exceptions are not handled correctly.
Can you confirm you did see a warning about reaching a query limit? Then validate retrieving all records?
March 2, 2018 at 9:55 AM
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