Performing auto-lookup during import

[jpelkey]

OK here's a strange thing, and as usual, I will do my best to explain it.

First, I am using FM 6, and I have a conditional pop-up menu. I have a "Item_Category" field that dynamically changes the "Item" field. The value list is an "Only Related Items" list.

Now, the catch is that I have the "Item" field set to Auto-enter a lookup so that you can't change the "Item_Category" field and accidentally leave the "Item" field unchanged; "Item" jumps to the first item in the newly-changed value list (the value list is set to include only related items). I hope that makes sense.

Okay, now here's the actual problem. I have a script that imports "Matching Field Name" records from another database. The script is set to perform auto-number, lookups, etc, upon import. But what happens is that the "Item" field gets the looked-up item described above, rather than the value from the imported file.

Is there any way to perform all other auto functions on import EXCEPT lookups? Or are there any ways to work around this?

[Fitch]

One possibility would be to add to your script a second import that imports just the Item field, using the update matching records option.

[jpelkey]

Well, that works, but there's another complication: The "Item" category also looks-up a "Unit Price" so if I disable "Auto-enter" on the second import script, the unit price doesn't get looked-up. Is there anything else that might work?

[Fitch]

You don't need to disable auto-enter, since you're only importing the one field. Another option would be to, after the second import, do a relookup based on the Item field.

[jpelkey]

Fitch: Thank you!

Actually, right before you posted that, I figured it out. The only annoying part is that I think you can only store one Import/Export order per script, so I had to make a script called "Second Import" that does the second import and the Relookup. Wow, what a mess! But, thanks to your input, I think its working. Thanks again!

JP

[Fitch]

Glad to hear it worked out. Yes, one import order per script, but the first script can contain one import order, and then it can call the second script with the second import order. So you still can run it all from one script/button. That's not so messy. It's very common to set up subscripts to be called by other scripts, especially for things like Sort and Page Setup.