We have received a list from the NCOA and would like to import the new addresses.  We have prepared the Import file and tested on the current records.  The preferred address is updated and address on Bio1 but the address of the Spouse in not updated.  Please advise if somebody had solve this problem.

Thank you.

Bing L Lacson

St Vincent Meals on Wheels

 Have the spouses addresses been specified as "linked" before the import? If so and it's still not updating,

can you add a "linked" field to your import with linked=yes ? Just a thought.

No, that will not work.

I have never been able to come up with a good solution for this except to say - use Blackbaud's AddressFinder instead of another vendor. The problem is that the two addresses are linked using a background ID that you can not access.  You can not during your import tell RE to switch the link from one address to another.

What AddressFinder can do is make a copy of the address as it currently is and marks it as previous (or whatever you tell it to call it).  Then it overwrites the currrent shared address with the new address so you both get to keep the old address and update the new address on all linked records.

That is not a function easy to mimick.  The only way to update both addresses during import is to import over the current address (i.e. import using the same address import ID) but then you lose your history of the old address.  If you can find a way to import both the old address again as a new address record (marked previous if you want) and also import over the old address with the new then you should be able to do it.

Otherwise whent his happened once we had to manually re-do all the links which was not fun.

Thank you Jana for your input.  We have not done what you suggested, we'll try if this will work otherwise this project is doomed.

Best regards,

Bing 

Thank you Melissa for your insight and input.  We seem to be stuck with this project at the moment.  Still hoping we can find a solution.

Best regards,

Bing L Lacson

I recently imported all new addresses from our NCOA file, which I had originally kept the record number from our fall mailing.  I was able to update the spouse record and keep the old address for history purpose.  I used a method that fools the system into making this work.  If you would like the information, I can send it to you.  It worked beautifully, but you have to follow the steps. 

Virginia Hubbard

Centra Health

Virginia.hubbard@centrahealth.com

Can you document the steps and post them to the shared documents?

... and post a summary here because I am sure that other would be interested, as I am.  I am set to import updated addresses tomorrow actually.

Yes--I can post the steps.  This will work only if you have an identifier for the export/import information, such as the constiuent ID, which you probably saved with your mailing (hopefully) for each address you mailed to.  Do you have this?

I would be interested in this also.  Please let us know when you have posted it.

Thanks

Okay, I've had so many requests, here are the instructions:  Good Luck,  VA

  Thanks for sharing

I also want to thank you for sharing this information as I am getting ready to import updated addresses also.

Deborah

 I have actually spent the better part of the last 2 weeks working on a process for importing from a non-Blackbaud vendor.  I'm putting together my notes which assume knowledge of importing and creating queries from import so they are not necessarily step-by-step.  Once I finish the notes, I will publish them.  It's a long labor-intensive process and we will be looking into the expense of going with Blackbaud for this service in order to keep the links, update spouses, preserving e-mail addresses, etc.  I'm hoping that with what I've documented and the discussions here, we'll be able to justify the expense.

Sorry for the delay.  Attached is the Address Change Procedure I put together while figuring out how to do this.  I have not performed the tasks from this reference yet, so forgive me if something doesn't make sense.

 Cindy Hicks - Database Manager

Columbus State University