Importing Customer Records from an ASCII Text File

When you are first starting out with Tick-It! Trak Pro you may already have a list of customers stored in another program. If that program is capable of creating an ASCII text file, you will probably want to take advantage of it and import those customer records into Tick-It! Trak Pro. Once you have the ASCII text file created from the other program you will follow these steps to import Customer Records into Tick-It! Trak Pro. (Note: You can actually import Customer Records at any time, not just when you are starting out. If you import Customer records after you are already up and running, beware of duplicate entries.)

Tick-It! Trak Pro allows you to import customer records from comma or tab delimited ASCII files. From the CUSTOMERS menu select IMPORT, then select FROM ASCII:

You will be presented with a form similar to the one shown below:

After reading the instructions, click on the NEXT button to proceed:

Click on the SELECT AN ASCII TEXT FILE button to select the Data File to Import.

If the first row of your import file contains the field names, as headers, then you will need to click on the box next to FILE CONTAINS COLUMN NAMES IN THE FIRST ROW. If you did not include field names or headers in your import file, leave this box blank. Here’s a tip: Check the box anyway at first. That way, you will see a sample of the first row of data, to help you match import fields to database fields. You can uncheck it if you need to later. If the preview list looks OK and sensible, click the NEXT button to continue:

The next step is to select which of the Available Fields in Customer Record you wish to import and in which order. On the LEFT side of the table the DESTINATION FIELDS in your Trak Pro database are listed. On the RIGHT side of the table are the SOURCE FIELDS coming from your import file. Use the pull down selectors for each field to match up your IMPORT file with the Trak Pro Database. If you are confused, you can try to get Trak Pro to take a guess at mapping the fields, after it analyzes the columns. When you are satisfied with the field mapping, click the NEXT button to continue:

Select the Customer Type you would like each of these imported Customer Records to have. Use the drop down list under the Set Customer Type To field to select the type you want to use. If you wish, you can create a NEW Customer Type by clicking on the button with the PLUS symbol. Click the NEXT button to continue:

Click on the FINISH button to import the file.

There will be a progress bar in the middle of the ASCII Import of Customer Records window. When your import is done you will be notified. Click on the OK button when done.

Important things to remember:

FIRST, ALWAYS make a backup of your Tick-It! Trak Pro database BEFORE you run any import operation. Always. Why? Well, imports can go sour. If your import data file is not “clean”, of if you make any mistakes mapping the import fields to the actual data fields, you will end up with hundreds, possibly thousands of garbage records. The easiest way to undo an import operation gone bad is to simply RESTORE the backup of the database made just before the import.

SECOND, the import procedure will produce DUPLICATE RECORDS if you import the same customers more than one time. This import is not “smart”. If you feed it a record, it does not check for the existence of that customer before creating a new record, so be careful with the data you feed it.

THIRD, be sure that your import text file is “CLEAN”. No, we don’t mean check it for viruses, we mean that you should insure that the data is complete, consistent and formatted correctly. If you have data files that have misplaced commas or quotes, really bad things will happen with your import.

EXAMPLE DATA IMPORT FILE AND POTENTIAL PROBLEM:

Let’s say we have the following (simple) comma delimited import file format:

FirstName, LastName, Address, City, State, Zip, Phone
John, Smith, 1234 Main, Anytown, MI, 44444, 555-1212
Frank, Kelly, 3114 Elm, Anytown, MI, 44444, 555-2212
...
...
Mary, Brown, PhD., 6443 Birch Road, Anytown, MI, 44444, 555-3293
...
...
Cindy, Johnson, 2523 Oakwood, Anytown, MI, 44444, 555-3453
Bob, Anderson, 9982 Maple, Anytown, MI, 44444, 555-4564

The records for SMITH, KELLY, JOHNSON and ANDERSON are all just fine, A-OK. But take a look at the record for BROWN. It seems that Mary Brown is a Doctor, and someone typed in the , PhD. as part of her last name. This is going to cause one heck of a mess in your import. As the import routine reads this file, when it gets to the BROWN record, it will read:

MARY as the First Name,
BROWN as the Last Name,
PHD. as the Address,
6443 BIRCH ROAD as the City
ANYTOWN as the State
MI as the Zip Code
44444 as the Phone Number
and then…
555-3293 will be read as the First Name of the NEXT RECORD,

and so on and so forth. So make sure your import file is clean and consistent BEFORE importing!