I realize this topic has been discussed in multiple locations already, but I still don't feel I have found a direct solution or answer to the information I'm looking for, so thanks in advance for your patience!
I am currently working on importing alumni into RE. Before I came into this position, there was a large time period in which the job of updating this information was neglected. I have a lot of files to import to catch up to our current year, many of which will be 100% new to RE, but some that will already be in there as donors, etc. (this information is not known to us without manually checking RE to see if they're in there or not)
Am I correct in understanding that there is no "easy" way to ensure that I am not importing constituents already in our RE database? I've imported quite a bit already using the "update existing records" option, and continually run the duplicate constituent search to merge or eliminate the duplicates. I would obviously prefer for there to be an automatic duplicate check before I import, but it seems like checking the "use duplicate criteria for new records" doesn't catch them.
I realize this is a beginner type question, but appreciate your helping a newbie out!
Sincerely,
April Archambault, Assiniboine Community College-Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
Oops, did something go wrong with your post? I'm not seeing anything come up.
With alumni the best way to check for dupes is to use a student ID or some unique identifier if your school uses one. If you do not use one then, yes, it becomes much more difficult although not impossible.
If you are using the update existing records import you have to be importing using the exact same ID (either Cons ID, Import ID or SSN). If your import does not have that ID (are you filling in the ID field?) it will just create a new record because ID is the first thing it tries to match.
If you use a Student ID and they are in your RE database (maybe as Cons IDs) then when you import you can import them all with the your dupe criteria based on that ID field. Depending on what you want it to do to to those already in the database you may want to do an update existing records import based on that ID with the checkbox to add new records it does not find or do a new record import with it creating an exception file of dupes that you can import only certain criteria later.
Ok, the bit about using the student ID makes so much sense! So far, we have not used that info unfortunately. (nor did the people before me). I had been just leaving the import ID blank, which now seems so horribly wrong.
Thanks for coming to my rescue again! I will try to figure out a new system using student IDs...just not sure what I'll do with those that have already been entered. Perhaps that could be a manual job for the summer student! Who knows...
Take Care,
April