Turns out there are solutions we can’t export

By | April 25, 2021

And, no, it’s not a typo. It’s easy to have a solution that you can’t import – as long as some dependencies are missing in both the solution being imported and in the target environment, such a solution cannot be imported.

But we also can’t export some solutions – I don’t see such errors often, so was quite a bit surprised the other day when I ran into one of those:

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Here is a link to the support article mentioned in the error above:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/invalid-export-business-process-entity-missing-3bd9228b-4d1f-9871-7007-fb7239559251

I used to think that “exporting” a solution is always allowed – apparently, business process flows are exceptional, for some reason. Although, I’d think it would not be different from all other dependencies, so not sure why an exception was made for the BPF tables – they have to be added to the same solution where the BPF is (and, normally, that’s what we do. But, when we don’t, that’s how the error above happens).

What’s also interesting about this is that a solution checker will fail to run for such a solution. Although, all we will see in the history is that solution check “couldn’t be completed”:

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Looking at the solution history, though, there is a clue there:

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Apparently, solution checker is exporting the solution prior to running solution check. It fails for the reasons described above, and there we go… solution check just “couldn’t be completed”.

PS. Come to think of it, there is a CRM tip of the day that’s been around since 2019: https://crmtipoftheday.com/1294/export-solution-before-running-solution-checker Well, I just sort of rediscovered the wheelSmile

3 thoughts on “Turns out there are solutions we can’t export

  1. Donal McCarthy

    It does seem like an anomaly that creating a BPF in a solution does not automatically add the tables that are also created.

    Reply
    1. Alex Shlega Post author

      Hi Donal, that part works fine. It’s when you start messing around with the solutions, that’s when you can add a BPF to a solution manually without also adding a table. As I wrote in the post, I think what is a bit surprising is that it’s, basically, a dependency, so why is it handled differently from all other dependencies (where an error would happen in import, not on export)? Anyways, it’s just a quirk to be aware of, especially for those of us who tend to separate process components from tables in their solutions, when running solution checker and/or when adding components to the solutions

      Reply
  2. James

    Also had a similar error with an optionset value created in the new designer that was missing a name!

    Reply

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