Importing Data from a lookup field in another File

[Myrtle]

I'm not sure what I'm missing in my import, but I am struggling to import address information from one FMP file to another.

In the old file, the address is a lookup field which references another table, (not in the same file). I am trying to import this data into the new file. Is it not possible to import data from a lookup field?

If not, can I create a field in the old database that will copy this data into a permanent field and then export it into the other database?

I get a message that the import has occurred, and I have matched the tables based on primary keys, but no data!

Any thoughts?

[Vaughan]

Check that the source table actually has data in the fields (this has caught me out before).

The problem might be that the import matching is incorrect: are any records matching?

[Myrtle]

yes, the records match, and I have been able to import other data. Somehow this piece isnt' working well, though.

And the source table does contain data, but it is all lookup values from other lookup values.

[Myrtle]

I have been working on this and still getting no where. There only seems to be data in the certain layouts when I go into Field/Control. Is there a way to copy the data into a new field completely so that the field is no longer "lookup" data?

[JesseSFR]

Lookup data is actually no different then any other data intrinsically. It is stored the same way and really has no different properties so there is no reason to do any funny stuff like copying it to another filed and then importing it.

An easy way to make sure that you do indeed have data in the fields that you are trying to import is to just export those same fields into a new FileMaker file and then inspect the data. If the data is showing up in your new file, then you can be sure that it will import properly. If you aren't getting the data that you want then there is something wrong with the relationship through which you are accessing the data. If it is there, you need to make sure that you use the EXACT same table occurrence and field when you do your import and you will be ok.

If you still have problems, you can upload a screen shot of the import/export and we can probably help some more.

[Myrtle]

Thank you SixFriedRice,

I'm not sure what the difficulty was, but I went ahead and exported the data to a new table. The data existed and then from that table, I imported it into my new table and it worked fine. But before i did the final import, I tried again to import from the original directly and something wasn't working. The fields looked empty.

I solved it, thanks to you, but still not sure what happened originally.

I appreciate it.