You are here: Chapter 7: Configuration and Administration > Address Book Administration > Populating the Address Book > Importing Address Book Contact Data > Load External Data into the Address Book

Load External Data into the Address Book

Note

This option is not available for any LDAP- or SQL-enabled Address Book. It is only for use with the FootPrints Address Book.

Before you begin, the Address Book fields must first be created to match the fields in the data to be imported.  Also, the contact data must be placed into a single, flat text file in CSV (Comma Separated Value) format.  Details on creating this text file can be found below. Previous releases permitted data to be in either CSV or Field-delimited formats; as of version 8.0 and higher, only the CSV file format is supported.

To load data interactively from the web screens:

  1. Select Administration | Address Book | Load Data.
  2. Complete the appropriate fields, which are explained as follows:
  3. Select Time to Load Contact Information section—The data can be imported immediately, or can be scheduled for a future time. If your import file is large (e.g., more than one thousand contacts) and the FootPrints server is in use, we recommend scheduling the import for a time when the server is not being accessed by users.
  4. Please browse for the data import file ...—Click the button to browse your local machine or network drives for the file. A link is also provided to review the schema of the data.
  5. Data encoding—Select the type of data encoding to use for the import file. Options are server default and UTF-8.
  6. Server Default - If you're planning to view the csv file in Excel or other non-UTF-8-aware application, or if you are loading data saved from Excel, you should pick the "server default" choice.
  7. UTF-8 - If you are sure that the application used to view the data in the .csv file can handle UTF-8 encoded data, select "UTF-8".
  8. Userid or full name of an agent...—There are two different methods for indicating the default submitter of the contact:
  9. If no submitter is indicated, the user ID of the administrator performing the data import becomes the submitter for all Issues being imported.
  10. Enter a valid one-word FootPrints ID in the field provided.  This user becomes the submitter for all of the Issues being imported.
  11. After confirming that everything is correct, click GO at the bottom of the screen to load the data. A new Load External Data page is displayed. The new page displays information about the data to be loaded at the top of the page.
  12. Complete the appropriate fields, which are explained as follows:
  13. You may use the parameters in a built-in Field-Mapping List...—On the left side of the schema section of the page, a list of built-in and saved field mappings is displayed (if you have saved mappings previously). To use a saved or built-in mapping, select the mapping fromthe list and the click theUse Selected List button. The fields for mapping will be populated from the selected list. To delete a saved list, select the field and then click theDelete Selected List button.
  14. Check here if your Load File...—The checkbox lets you indicate if your import file has a Heading line. Check the box as appropriate. If the box is checked, the first line of the import file will not be loaded as data.
  15. Save Field-Mapping List button—The Save Field-Mapping List button saves the list of mappings you create. When you save the mapping, you are prompted for a name for the saved field mapping. When the save completes, the name is displayed in the list on the left side of the page.
  16. Field Mapping—Map the fields in the load file to Address Book fields by selecting the appropriate load file fields from the drop-downs. To skip a field mapping, select Do Not Import from the drop-down. If you select Do Not Import, no data is entered into that field. You can also select Blank Field #1 to leave fields blank.
  17. Check here to create/update Master Contact Records with values from your import file...—Check the box to ensure that Master Contact Records are updated for all Address Book entries with information from the import file.
  18. If you are not using a saved mapping, after confirming that everything is correct, click the Save Field-Mapping List button if you wish to save the mapping for re-use at a later time.
  19. Click the GO button at the bottom of the page to import the data.
  20. The data is validated.  If the data is good, the import proceeds.  It takes some time if the import file is large, so be patient.  If bad data is present, an error message is displayed with the line numbers of contacts containing errors.
  21. If you scheduled the import to occur in the future, the import does not occur until that time.  To remove a scheduled import, click the link to Review a List of Address Book Load events.  Imports that have already started cannot be removed.

 Load Data As Batch Process

FootPrints also permits data to be imported into the Address Book on a batch basis without use of the web screens. You must prepare the Upload file as described in the ‘Creating the Data File’ section. As explained there, Batch Upload files receive no error checking – they are loaded as-is, so it is essential that your Upload file be properly setup and that it contain no errors.

The process is run on a ‘command line’ basis.

For loading web queue of Address Book imports the command is:

perl MRloadBackgroundABData.pl

For importing a .csv file to the Address Book, the command:

perl MRloadBackgroundABData.pl [args]

where [args] are:

The default is to not update master contact records and to not validate fields in the background except to require that the primary key value be set.

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