ClickDimensions Import Failure - Invalid URI: The hostname could not be parsed

Ryan Blaikie, 25 June 2022

ClickDimensions import for Marketing Lists is a helpful feature when you want to add members based on an Excel spreadsheet rather than based on an existing view in Dynamics 365. However, sometimes if the import fails it can be confusing to determine what the cause of the issue is and how to fix it. I recently had an import failure with this message:

Error while getting accounts from excel file [filename]. Details: Invalid URI: The hostname could not be parsed.

In my case it turns out the cause of the error was due to how I had copied and pasted the data into the Excel import template, resulting in a different formatting.

To avoid this issue when copying and pasting data into the target spreadsheet (and as a general good practice), paste the values only. Instead of pasting using ‘Ctrl+V’, right click the desired cell and select ‘Values’ underneath ‘Paste Options’:

This will ensure that none of the formatting is carried over from the data source. If you select any of the data, you should see that the formatting is set to ‘Text’.

If you try the ClickDimensions import again, you should no longer receive a failure message!