Importing data

[andreasbohlke]

Hi all.

I have a database with a lot of data on firms and contact persons.

The database is pretty old so there´s a lot of untruthful data in there.

Therefore I wished to "clean up" the data so i send some data to a company that can match company and VAT and give the rightful information on companies.

My problem now is, that I want to implement this data. I need to "overwrite" a lot of data (ex. address, town, phone number and so on) and keep some other data, but can figure out how to it. For instance will the "merge"-option not overwrite fields that are not blank. And the replace by source could destroy some data?

Hope someone can help.

Andreas    

[GLComputing]

To update fields in an import, you need to use an addon such as itImport
http://www.glcomputing.com.au/main/57/1

[andreasbohlke]

Okay I might look into that.

I tried do run some test imports, and found that if i use the "replace with source" it would overwrite the specific field that i wished to update. But I can't figure out if it deletes something else?

Andreas.

[GLComputing]

It would over write ALL fields from the source ... so, if you have a field in ACT! that's NOT in the source, then it gets wiped.

[GLComputing]

And, if you're synchronizing, it will send all that info out, making quite large syncs

[ghollister]

To clarify what the "Replace with source contact" option does: It only replaces data for the fields you have mapped. If a mapped field in the source has no data in it and the target database does have data in that field, it will remove the data. So, only map those fields that you wish to have the data replaced in.

The "Merge" option will only populate fields you have mapped that have no data.

None of the merge options will affect fields that are not mapped during the import wizard. Nor will they affect contacts that are not identified as duplicates by the duplicate checking criteria.

[andreasbohlke]

To Greig Hollister.

I made an import on two fields that was succesfully updated. But
It wiped out a lot of other fields even though they didnt appear In my import file.
That doesnt fit with what you are writing? Maybe im not Reading it the right way

[ghollister]

On the field mapping, did you map only the two fields you wanted to update?

[ghollister]

Also, what is your source file? .txt, .csv, Excel, or another ACT! database?