Last week’s tip focused on mapping custom source data during a Custom Import. As you learned previously, the Custom Import type reveals a few extra options that enable you to:
- Create a new field in Sage ACT! when importing data
- Map custom source data to target fields in Sage ACT!
- Modify data merge options to ensure data imports as expected
This week’s tip will help you make sense of the Merge Options screen to ensure data imports as expected. When importing data to or exporting data from a database, you can select merge options for records and related items, such as notes and histories. These merge options look at the source records and destination records and determine what happens with data that matches and does not match. Whether a record matches or not is first determined by whether or not it has the same Globally Unique Identifier as an existing record, and secondarily determined by your Duplicate Matching preferences.
Specifying Merge Options During a Custom Import:
1. From within the Custom Import Wizard, on the “Specify Merge Options” page, click Contact (or Group, or Company) to change the default settings for data merge options.
2. The “Contact Merge Options” screen includes options for source records that match destination records and options for source records that do not match destination records.
For each option, click the drop down list and select from the available choices:
a. When source records match destination records you can specify to:
- Merge data to fill in blank fields in the destination record with data from the source record. If the destination field contains data, no data is imported or exported.
- Replace with newest contact (group or company) to use the data in the record with the most recent Edit Date. This is the default setting. In some situations, such as importing data from a delimited text file, this option is not available because the source files do not have a date and time stamp.
- Replace with newest contact (group or company) overwrites the data in the destination field.
- Do not change means no data is imported or exported from the source.
b. When source records do not match destination records you can specify to:
- Add the record. (Default setting)
- Skip the record.
3. After making your selections, click OK to return to the “Specify Merge Options” page. You may optionally select from the additional options:
- When the source database is another Sage ACT! database:
- You may select Include attachments to import attachments from the source database.
- Select Include other users’ public activities to import other users’ public meetings, to-dos and other activities.
- If you select Confirm each match, then during the import or export process, when a matching record is detected, the “Match Confirmation” dialog box appears. In the “Match Confirmation” dialog box, you will be able to choose an option for the matched record.
4. On the “Completing Import Wizard” page, click Finish to begin the Import.
5. As mentioned, if you selected Confirm each match earlier, during the import or export process, when a matching record is detected, the “Match Confirmation” dialog box will require you to manually confirm each match and select an action:
- To create a new record, click Create a new contact (group or company)
- To perform the selected merge action from the “Merge Options” dialog box, click Merge Action.
- To skip importing or exporting the record, click Skip.
- Click OK to confirm your selected action.
- Repeat the above steps for each match found.
After all matching records are dealt with your data will be successfully imported!
