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Importing

PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:40 pm
by sanjosecsz
I'm having trouble importing the phones, email and addresses. I've followed the instructions, but can't seem to get the addresses, phones, fax and email to show up in the contacts. In my previous filemaker database, the phone, fax and email were all contained in the same file, so I can't import them separately... any suggestions?

PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:13 am
by John Sindelar
Sure.

The first thing I'd check is to see if the phone numbers, etc. are perhaps linked to the contact but not showing up: find a contact that you know has phone numbers and see if the "more" button on the contact's overview screen can reveal their phone numbers. If they are there in "more" but not on the over view screen, you need to mark some or all of the entries as "main". Read through the instr. again for notes about "main".

If they aren't there in "more" it is likely because the phone number's contact ID doesn't match your contact's ID. Revisit the import instructions concerning IDs and see if you may have missed something.

Here are the online instructions, for your reference:

http://docs.seedcode.com/ccp8/show/Importing+Contacts

Hope that helps.

John

PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:58 pm
by sanjosecsz
I think I'm running into trouble here...
[quote]Import ContactID_kprime into the “SeedCodeContactIDâ€

PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:26 pm
by John Sindelar
So once you have ID back in your original file, you send that with the phone numbers and addresses when you import them into the calendar so they have the same value in PhoneContactID_kf (from the phone table, for example) as the contact they are supposed to be related to has in ContactID_kprime.

Hope that helps,

John

PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:43 pm
by sanjosecsz
So I only have to do this step once with the contacts file?
[quote]Make sure that all the newly imported records constitute the found set in SeedCodeContacts. Then go to the FileMaker file you imported from (your data), make sure all records are found, and select Import Records / File… from FileMaker’s File menu. Select SeedCodeContacts.fp7 as the data source. In the Import Field Mapping window that comes up, select the “Contactâ€

PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:48 pm
by John Sindelar
No. The idea is that the step you've quoted above pulls the ID SeedCode Calendar created for your contact back into your file. You can then include it when you import your phone numbers in as the contact's ID for those phone numbers. If your phone numbers are in different files/tables from your contact you'd move this new ID into your phone and address tables (probably by creating a new field for it and running a replace to get the data in there) so you can include the ID when you import from your phone file / table into our phones table.

Does that help?

PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 3:08 pm
by sanjosecsz
John Sindelar wrote: If your phone numbers are in different files/tables from your contact you'd move this new ID into your phone and address tables (probably by creating a new field for it and running a replace to get the data in there) so you can include the ID when you import from your phone file / table into our phones table.

Does that help?


Ok, I did not do that last step. I'll try that now....
Thanks

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:16 am
by sanjosecsz
Here's something I can't get around...
I have 2200 contacts, so when I imported the contacts and assigned the SeedCodeContactId it put 2200 incremental numbers in the ID Field.
However my address file has 2300 records, since some of the contacts had
multiple addresses. The phone/fax/email file has 2600 records. The original serial numbers match up in my original file (in other words, the extra records for address, phone, email etc still share the same serial number) I tried to do a replace for the SeedCodeContactID in the address file, starting with the first number in my contact file and incrementing by one, but it added 100 extra numbers to the extra records.
How can I get the SeedCodeContactID numbers to match up, taking the extra records into account?

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:10 pm
by John Sindelar
You can certainly make a new field in address and do a replace, but it might be simpler to create a new calculated field in the address table. This calc would return the related contact's SeedCodeContactID. and might look something like...

Contacts::SeecCodeContactID

...if "Contacts" was the name of your contacts table related to appointments. Be sure you define this calc to return the type "text".

Then import this calc in as AddressContactID_kf when you do your import.

Let us know if that helps,

John

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:34 pm
by sanjosecsz
John Sindelar wrote:You can certainly make a new field in address and do a replace, but it might be simpler to create a new calculated field in the address table. This calc would return the related contact's SeedCodeContactID. and might look something like...

Contacts::SeecCodeContactID

...if "Contacts" was the name of your contacts table related to appointments. Be sure you define this calc to return the type "text".

Then import this calc in as AddressContactID_kf when you do your import.

Let us know if that helps,

John


Hi John,
When I attempt that I get a message saying the specified table cannot be found.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:48 pm
by John Sindelar
Sounds like you may have the context of your calculation incorrect (this is the "Evaluate this from the context of..." at the top of the calculation window). You should evaluate from an occurrence of addresses that is linked to an occurrence of contacts and then use the name of that occurrence of contacts as the "Contacts::" part of your calc above.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:09 pm
by sanjosecsz
OK, I'm either getting warmer, or a lot colder...
Right now I'm trying to create the calc field in the address table I'm trying to import. Or am I supposed to be creating it in the address table in SeedCodeCalendar?
When I try to create it in the address table I'm attempting to import the section with "Evaluate this from the context of..." is greyed out...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:18 pm
by John Sindelar
Hi, don't give up. Importing like this is an important skill and one you'll be glas to have mastered. However it sounds like you are kind of missing the big picture which is that each address just needs to know who its contact is- there are a lit of ways to accomplish this. However, I don't think I can help much more by email; it sounds like perhaps you should send me the files for an estimate to finish the import for you. You can email me at john at seedcode.com or call if you'd like to talk first.

Best,

John

PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:34 pm
by sanjosecsz
I GOT IT!
I didn't have a relationship set up between the tables I was trying to import. Once I set up a relationship between the address file and the contact file, I was able to set up the calc field and everything worked!
Now I just have to do it all over again with the other tables and God-Willing, I'll be done by midnight :)

Thanks again, John!
Jeff

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:08 am
by John Sindelar
Right on Jeff! Excellent news!