New to Importing - an EASY Way?

[Dana G]

[color:blue]My company has been working in FM 6 and had asked me to recreate rather than convert to 7. My problem is that someone else created everything in 6 and they are no longer here. There is a lot of junk and it was poorly documented.

I have recreated several files and am now trying to import data from 6 into 7. I am somewhat new to importing and I am curious to know if there is a simpler method.

[color:red]It seems that it would be much easier if I could match field names to field names rather than old data to new field names. Is there a way to do this? Is there a better way that what I am wanting?

[Sanjai]

Step 1: You should first convert your fp5 file to fp7 file by opening the fp5 file in FileMaker Pro 7.

Step 2: Check for integrity of data in the new converted file, match the number of records, do some searches on primary key, match calculation results.

Step 2: In the file which you have recreated, import the data from the converted file from step 1.

Hope this helps. Thanks,

Sanjai

[Dana G]

Thanks Sanjai but maybe I didn't ask my question in the correct manner.

When exported data from FM 6 is imported into FM7, I would like to know if there is a way to match field names on both sides of the import screen instead of seeing FM6 data on the left and the FM7 field names on the right.

[Sanjai]

Yes, you have a choice to import data by matching field names. FileMaker recommends in the migration process to convert data into fp7 file and then import records into the new recreated fp7 file from the converted fp7 file. This would help to capture some problems in advance.

Thanks,

--Sanjai

[Reed]

if you convert the files to .fp7, you could use a copy of FP8 to import the data and tables into a new .fp7 file, without first creating the fields. They can be created automatically.

[SteveB]

I think the easiest way is to create a .mer file for export. That way you'll get the field names as the first record in the file. Then do an import of the .mer file and you won't have to worry about matching up loads of names. (I haven't tried this myself since I use v6 and have just ordered v8).

Steve

[Dana G]

Oh my goodness. Steveinvegas you are my hero! If you knew how much time you just saved me...Thank you so much!!!

[bruceR]

Merge file format is great but there are problems with some field names. For instance if you have a space in the field name it will show up with an underscore in the merge file and therefore you will NOT be able to do name matching on import. There are several other problem characters.

[Dana G]

Yeah I came across that. For the most part I have found that .tab files work best for our data. I am doing fine on the exporting and importing but have run across a different problem. When I export the data out of 6 and into 7 it works fine. I have had a couple instances where I need to export and import again. I found that if more than a day has passed, I have to re-select all of the fields to export. How do I get them to stay the way they were so that all I have to do is click export?

[-Queue-]

Create a script, directly after you have performed the export in 6, using

Export Records [Restore, No dialog]

and perform this script each time you wish to export.

[Dana G]

Thanks. I hadn't even thought about doing that. This Forum keeps me from going crazy!