ok, So i am having a problem exporting data from one database to another. Im on Act Premium 11
I have 2 databases, Database_A and Database_B. Im trying to export ALL the data from Database_B into Database_A. Sounds easy...right? in Database_B i just goto export, choose all records and export it into Database_A. i have duplicate checking OFF in BOTH databases (becuase i dont want it to merge, or do anythign with any of the records, just simply add them together,even if there are dup's)
In the export wizard I've tried both "merge" when duplicate is found, and "Add" when not found. Also, tried "Do Nothing" when duplicate is found, and "Add" when not found.
In BOTH cases it only added 26 from database_B to Database_A (it should have moved 500+) Since it only moved 26 over, I have the feeling that it is finding matches and "merging" or "doing nothing". although im 100% that there are NO matches in either Database. And even if there were, I dont have Duplicate checking on.
How do i make sure it does not find matches!?! I just want to add the Databases together, matches/duplicates and all.
The unique ID is created by the ACT! program at the time the record is created. I believe it's a 32 byte binary number created using a complex algorithm and it's nearly impossible to have duplicate unique IDs. I would have to assume that most of the 500 records were already in the 12,000 record database.
you said "I would have to assume that most of the 500 records were already in the 12,000 record database."
I agree in a sense. I think that it THINKS that the records are already in the destination database. but they are NOT. a lot of the records and such have missing info, so i think it reads 2 records NOT having, say phone numbers just for example, are a MATCH. When really they are not, just imcomplete. My understanding was, if i turn Duplicate checking OFF, that it would just simply ignore what it THOUGHT were duplicates/matches and just add them to the database.
Is my train of though on the right path? or am i missing something? I hope i am, so i can fix this!!!
Your thinking is correct EXCEPT that does not turn off the match on unique ID. Because they are not exporting to the second database, they have to be matching on unique ID. As a test, create an empty copy of your database and export to that database and see if all 500 records go into the empty database.
i just did the empty master thing. It worked. All the records went over to the empty master. Why did i Do that?
so now we know the export is working.
this is very frustrating. What are the chances that 95% of my records are matching by unique ID in the other Database? if it were 1-10 records i wouldnt care, but almost ALL of the records are getting matched to something, even though the Dup checking is off.
Given the test results, I'd say that 95 percent are matching unique ID. How was the smaller database originally created? Any chance some of the records from the larger database were exported to create the smaller database? I've seen this happen before where one database was created from another then rather than delete the records and add new records, people would simply edit the records. Because the editing does not change the unique ID, they could move the records back to the source database.
A while back, a coworker exported a look-up into a new database (database_b) and changed the info in the records. So the names of companys and such were different, but they came from the Database_A. So i guess the unique ID's were the same.
thank you soo much for troubleshooting this with me. I owe you one.
