Get Documents and Attachments out of Salesforce

As Content will be included in all Salesforce licenses (for completeness, I'll add 'to some degree') with the Spring '10 release, orgs will be faced with the daunting prospect of getting their documents and attachments out of Salesforce and into Content.

I had this problem when Content was first released and I was asked to be one of the first SysAds to use it. At the time, we used Solution 1 (below), but since then, other products have been released to help with this.

Why is it even an issue?

• Surely we can download each file? Yes, but who wants to?
• Can't we do a Data Export and then upload those to Content? Yes, but all the files are renamed with their 15-character Ids, making renaming them all-but-impossible.

salesforce.com and DreamFactory to the rescue!

Solution 1

Summary: Use a script to rename all exported files. A (wonderful!) salesforce.com employee, Nick Marcantonio, wrote a Perl script to perform the transformation. Here it is, in all its glory:

# Nick Marcantonio
# nmarcantonio at salesforce.com
# 08/07

$file = 'Attachment.csv';

open (F, $file) || die ("Could not open $file!");

$line = <F>; #read first line which is nothing but column headers
while ($line = <F>)
{
  ($id,$name) = split ',', $line;
  chomp($id);
  $id =~ s/"//g;
  chomp($name);
  $name =~ s/"//g;
  
  #print "$id : $namen";
  
  $result = rename($id, $name);
  #print "$resultn";
}

close (F);

The instructions:

If you've done a data export you've noticed that all attachments are placed in the Attachments subfolder and named with their salesforce ID, not the actual file name or extension. One must then consult the Attachment.csv file included in the data export to find the name associated with the ID and rename the file. Attached to this solution is a Perl script that will rename all of the exported attachments to their proper names. Please follow these steps to run this:

1. Perform a data export and unzip the resulting zip file
2. Launch the data loader and export from the Attachments table ONLY the Id and Name column. This file must be named Attachment.csv.
3. Install ActivePerl. This will allow perl scripts to be run on a Windows machine. ActivePerl is available here (http://www.activestate.com/activeperl).
4. Copy the Attachment.csv file and the attached AttachmentParser.pl file to the Attachments subdirectory of the data export.
5. Double-click on AttachmentParser.pl.

All of the files named with their salesforce IDs will be renamed with their proper names and file extensions.

(This solution will work for documents as well. Follow the same procedure and be sure to name the extract from the Documents table Attachment.csv) 

Note: This will not preserve folders, as far as I know. You may be able to recreate this by exporting the Folder table and doing some work on that, as the Document table does include a FolderId column.

A heartfelt thank-you to Nick Marcantonio for his help!

Solution 2

Install DreamFactory's FREE DreamTeam Document Management application from the AppExchange to drag-and-drop your Documents to your desktop.
This doesn't work with Attachments, though, so you may need to use another method for them.

Please let us know how it goes - good luck and enjoy Content!