The General import offers a flexible means of bringing into Enterprise 6 company and contact information from almost any source. It imports data from text files delimited by Tabs and Carriage Returns, which can be produced (or converted from other formats) by most Word Processors and Spreadsheets. The function is capable of importing just companies, just contacts, companies with multiple contacts, and contacts with multiple companies.
The most convenient way of producing import files will often be through the use of a spreadsheet program. If so, when the data is complete and the file is ready for import, use the ‘Save As…’ function (usually on the File menu) to convert the file to text format. Choose the ‘Text’ option or ‘Text (Tab delimited)‘. The latter option will insert Line Feed characters into the file, which the import routine will then need to remove again.
If exporting data from other databases or accounts programs, it is advisable to export as text and examine the file in a spreadsheet before importing to Enterprise 6 to ensure that the columns are in the correct order (specified below).
When building your own import file, you must include every field in the order shown below, as the import function is expecting a text file of a set format. If editing the information in a spreadsheet prior to import, each field would be represented by a different column. You not need to have information in every field, so if you have gaps in your data, then the spreadsheet should feature blank columns to correspond to those gaps.
For example, if data for the Job Title field is not available, you should nevertheless retain a blank column for that field between the Role and Dept/Room columns.
File Field Notes Company Company code Contact Title eg Mr, Mrs Contact Forename Contact Surname Contact Title Forename Surname eg Mr Joe Bloggs as one field Contact Forename Surname eg Joe Bloggs as one field Contact Title Surname eg Mr Bloggs as one field Contact Salutation Contact Qualifications Contact Role Contact Job Title Contact Dept/Room Company Company name Company Address1 Company Address2 Company Town Company County Company Postcode Company Country Company Telephone Contact Extension Contact Mobile Company Fax Company Size Company Last contact Company Financial year Company Comments Company Private enter TRUE or FALSE to this field Company Status Company Type Company Source Company Area Company Sales person Company Taken by Company Further analysis Company Omit Will default to N if left blank Company Invoice Dept Company Invoice name Company Invoice Add1 Company Invoice Add2 Company Invoice Town Company Invoice County Company Invoice Postcode Company Invoice Country Company Value Company Also Known As Company Superior Company Sales credit Company Purchase credit Company VAT Prefix Company VAT reg No Company Default Sales Ledger Payment terms Company Default Stage Company Sales Orders price group Company Default layer Company Factor No Company Autopay No Company Their Acc No Company Mailsort SSC Company Mailsort OFN Contact Contact code Optional, and should be used with care because any existing records with the same code may be considered a duplicate Contact Address type eg Home address, Work, etc. It appears in the Companies…includ ed form at the top of the ‘Enter contacts’ screen. Contact Status Contact Type Contact Source Contact Sales person Contact Further analyses Contact Omit Will default to N if left blank Contact Comments Contact Fax Contact email Contact Esquire True/False, 1/0 or Y/N Contact Last modifiedDate Company Default purchase Ledger Payment terms Company Purchase order price group
Your text document must contain this number of fields, blank if necessary, including those fields referring to volumes to which you do not have access.
Take care when completing some fields such as Status, type and Source, because these are applicable to both companies and contacts, and appear in different parts of the spreadsheet according to their use.
If the first line of the text document shows field headings to aid editing, no attempt will be made to import that line if the headings are spelt in the same way as those used in the example file.
You may add contacts or Further analyses to existing companies by correctly typing for each contact either the company code, or all three of company name, Add1 and Town., or by leaving all company data blank. All other data must also either be repeated for each company or put in the last record to be imported - not the first.
Take great care if using company and contact codes, since, if there are conflicts, the old records may be overwritten (see below).
On choosing ‘General import’ from the companies menu, you are first asked to confirm that the data is stored in a file on disk in the correct text format. Enterprise 6 then asks, ‘Where any duplicates are found, do you want to overwrite existing database data with that from the import file, or to leave the records untouched?’, with the options of [Overwrite] and [Untouched]. Under the [Overwrite] option, the data in the file being imported is presumed to supersede that in the Enterprise 6 data file. The [Untouched] option means that any records from the import file that match ones in the database will be ignored, and the Enterprise 6 data will be unchanged.
The intelligence of the import function in determining what constitutes 'matches' is not meant to rival the Enterprise 6 Deduplication facilities (found on the Utilities menu in the Data Manager). Its primary purpose is to prevent the importing of exactly the same data sources more than once. If company and/or contact codes are specified in the import file, then this matching will always be by code. Otherwise, the a company is considered a match if its company name and Town are exactly the same and, if specified in the data file, the first ten characters of the first line of its address are the same. If you are doing an import with multiple contacts per company, it is therefore important that you repeat either the company code (if known), or the company name, Town and address 1 for each of the contact lines. Enterprise 6 will assume that any contact lines with no company reference at all should be appended to the company last imported or found.
Matching is not done by Postcode because it is quite often the case that imports are carried out in order to add Postcodes to existing database records.
The contact is considered a match if the Surname and first letter of the Forename match (or, if these are blank, the Job Title or Department match). Enterprise 6 also looks to see if the contact is already allocated to the company code involved in or created by the import. If no Surname is present, the matching depends upon the Job Title or Department. Therefore, care should be taken when importing multiple contacts with no names, but with different Job Titles or Departments as there is a risk of each overwriting the last.
Contacts can be imported in a way that merely appends an additional company code and address to an existing contact. This can be done by filling in the company details in the import file and then either adding the contact code or adding the text ‘*SAME’ to the Surname column. The former allows such additions to be made from anywhere within the import file. The latter will cause Enterprise 6 to assume that the company details are to be appended to the last contact dealt with, so this method should only be used sequentially within the file. Note that a contact will only be imported if it has at least one of: Surname (from any of the name columns), Job Title, Department or contact code. When existing records are modified by an import, only fields that actually contain data in the import file are modified. Therefore, you could, for example, use the import to simply update the values of one or two fields of existing records. This process could start with the export of company codes from those existing records, then the addition of further data in a spreadsheet, following by re-importing. Having considered the question of possible duplication, you are then shown the normal Open file window - locate and open the file on disk that stores your data. The importing may take some time, depending on the number of companies involved. When the process is complete you are asked ‘View the companies created?’ - press [OK] if you want to see the newly entered companies. Using this list you might, for example, choose to sort the companies by town, then allocate to different Sales People using the [Global Change] button. Note that newly created companies will, if a Postcode has been specified and the relationship between Areas and Postcodes has been set up in the Data Manager, automatically be allocated an Area. Finally, if any companies have been modified during the import process, you are also asked ‘View the companies modified?’ - again press [OK] to see the list. You can then view new and modified contacts. Note that for very large text documents, which will be very laborious to convert to the required import format, your Enterprise 6 dealer or consultant may be able to construct an import routine in the Macro Editor. contact your dealer for more details. Many of the concepts described above are included in the example spreadsheet. The first data row (row three) contains a company and a contact both pre-identified by code, each with their own Status, type and Source. Rows four and five contain a single company with two contacts, the company being identified for the second one by company name, Town and address 1. The second of these contacts does not have a name, but does have a Job Title, Role, and address type. Rows six and seven contain a single contact with two company addresses, the second being a private home address. Note that this second address is necessarily sequential in the file if the ‘*SAME’ method is used, but not necessarily if a contact code is known.