Migrating "Notes & Attachments" to "Notes and Files"

1.  Salesforce Files & Enhanced Notes

1.1        Files

Salesforce files allows users to

1. Collaborate with coworkers by posting files to feeds and directly to records, such as Accounts, Cases, Leads, and more. 
2. Share files with customers in the secure Salesforce cloud. 
3. Sync files between your local drive and Salesforce. 
4. Learn how users work with files by running standard and custom file reports. 
5. Have multiple versions of same file. 
6. Have file of size upto 2 GB

1.2        Enhanced Notes

1. Notes is built on top of Salesforce Files, so you can do many of the same things with notes that you can do with files, such as report on notes and use Chatter to share notes. With the Enhanced Note-taking tool over legacy Notes users can
2. Create standalone notes (not related to records) 
3. Relate notes to multiple records  
4. Use rich text formatting, including bulleted and numbered lists  
5. Search Salesforce for just notes 
6. And many more

2.  Migrating from “Notes & Attachments” to “Notes & Files”

In the Winter’16 release, Salesfroce introduced Files related list, that can be added to page layouts.  In Spring’16salesforce provides an option, so when users upload files using Attachments related list, they goto Files object not the Attachments. Considering above features and enhancements, NTN decided to use Files & Notes instead of the Notes & attachments.

3.  Problem Statement

There is no official / unofficial document that is as of this day, outlines the steps to upload Files (ContentDocument) nor anything related to migration from Attachments to Files.

4.  Files data loading

2         

3         

4         

4.1        Content Document Objects ERD

4.2        Data loading steps for Files

1. Export Attachments data using data loader. 
2. Export Attachments files, using data export wizard or File exporter. 
3. Create two fields, ParentId and AttachmentId on ContentVersion object 
• ParentId will hold the id of the entity, attachment was linked to. 
• AttachmentID (with unique constraint) will hold the id of the attachment from attachment object.
4. Create a CSV, ContentVersion_upload.csv, for ContentVersion with the following fields
• Attachment_id (AttachmentId from file exported in step-1)
• ISDELETED 
• PARENTID (Entity Id of the object, from file exported in step 1) 
• Versiondata (local file path) 
• PathOnClient (local file path) 
• Title (title of the file) 
• OWNERID 
• DESCRIPTION
5. Upload (Insert) ContentVersion.csv. 
6. Export ContentVersion data uploaded in step-5. 
7. Create another CSV for ContentDocumentLink (and update ContentDocumentID and ParentEntityId, from the ContentVersion file exported in step-5) with the following fields: 
• CONTENTDOCUMENTID (ContentDocumentId from file exported in step-6) 
• LINKEDENTITYID (ParentId from file exported in step-6) 
• SHARETYPE 
• VISIBILITY
8. Upload (Insert) ContentDocumentLink.

5.  Notes data loading

5         

5.1        Content Notes Objects ERD

5.2        Data loading steps for Notes

1. Export Notes data using data loader. 
2. To successfully import files, certain special characters will need to be converted to a supported HTML character code equivalent prior to import. Below is a list of unsupported characters and their suggested HTML character code replacement:

Find Special Character	Replace with...
&	&
<	&lt;
>	&gt;
"	&quot;
'	&#39;


P.S. There are other formatting options available here. e.g. line breaks, etc.




Convert Note Body to individual text file 


• Since enhanced notes are part of Salesforce content, it requires “.txt” or “.html” files to be uploaded. Hence, body of the notes downloaded in step-1 need to be converted to “.txt” files before they can be used in CSV preparation. Physical path of the files created from this conversion will be used in next step.





Prepare CSV file with following fields 


• Title (Title of the note) 
• Content (Local file path of the note) 





Prepend file path to the ‘Title’ column, if Note Body is converted as mentioned below then physical file should be created with the Title name and append “.txt”.


SAMPLE TABLE:
 

Title	Content
Test Note 1	C:\notes\test_note_01.txt
Test Note 2	C:\notes\test_note_02.html
Test Note 3	C:\test_note3.txt



3. Insert Notes (ContentNote) with data loader 
4. Export ContentNote data. 
5. Create another CSV for ContentDocumentLink with the following fields: 
• CONTENTDOCUMENTID (ContentDocumentId from file exported in step-6) 
• LINKEDENTITYID (ParentId from file exported in step-6) 
• SHARETYPE 
• VISIBILITY 
6. Locate the success log from the Note import (Step 4 above) and populate the ContentDocumentId column in the new file with Id value from the success files for the Notes that you want to relate to records. 
7. Populate the LinkedEntityId column with the id of the record that you want to relate the Note to. 
8. Set the ShareType and Visibility fields as desired. Documentation here describes the valid values for these fields and their function, there is also an example insert file attached to this article. Repeat as needed for further records then save your file.(Please note that you can only specify the values 'I' or 'V' for the standard objects since type 'C' is not supported) 
9. Upload contentDocumentLink.

5.3        Note Body conversion to “.txt” files

Create a macro (vba) to export note body to text files. To create excel macro follow these steps:

1. Go to View Tab

2. Macros > Record Macro

3. Enter a name for the macro

4. Macros > View Macro

5. Click on the macro you created in step - 3

6. Click "Edit" button

Or refer this link (http://www.excel-easy.com/vba/create-a-macro.html)
7. Enter the VB code given below in the macro and edit column heading as per your sheet.

Sub Export_Files()
    Dim sExportFolder, sFN As String
    Dim rNoteName As Range
    Dim rNoteContent As Range
    Dim oSh As Worksheet
    Dim oFS As Object
    Dim oTxt As Object

    'sExportFolder = path to the folder you want to export to
    'oSh = The sheet where your data is stored
    sExportFolder = "D:\[Folder location...]\NoteFiles"
    Set oSh = Sheet1

    Set oFS = CreateObject("Scripting.Filesystemobject")

    'Note file name, in the code below, “E” column
    For Each rNoteName In oSh.UsedRange.Columns("E").Cells
        'Note body is 4 column spaced from Note Title, hence offset with column 4 used.
        'change below code as per your CSV file
        Set rNoteContent = rNoteName.Offset(, 4)

        'Add .txt to the article name as a file name
        sFN = rNoteName.Value & ".txt"
        Set oTxt = oFS.OpenTextFile(sExportFolder & "\" & sFN, 2, True)
        oTxt.Write rNoteContent.Value
        oTxt.Close
    Next
End Sub

6.  References

http://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=notes.htm

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?urlname=Consideration-for-enhanced-notes-and-using-Files&language=en_US

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?urlname=Importing-Notes-to-the-ContentNote-object-using-the-Apex-Data-Loader&language=en_US
ContentNote can't be saved, because it contains HTML tags...