duplicate imports?

[srh1122]

Can anyone help me with a solution?? Please?! :-)

We are tracking foster care youth. Placement agencies give us an excel file with the youth and all their placements - the youth are duplicated in the file- there could be up to 20 different placements or schools they have attended. How do I import these youth into specific fields I have defined? I am baffled at how to do this import... Can you help? or do you need more information? Thanks in advance.

[Fitch]

You may want to use an intermediate file or table to import the records and weed out the duplicates, then import the cleaned-up list into your working file/table.

[srh1122]

ya.. i guess that's the part i'm having problems with.. only the student is duplicated - with new placements - i'm having a hard time figuring out how to get the students into my "real" file and the placements into their respective fields... does that make anymore sense?

[srh1122]

ok - i don't think i explained my situation well enough. If i do that i will have multiple files - for the same student

here are the columns from what i get from a placement agency in an EXCEL file

YouthName, PlacementName, PlacementDateIn, PDateOut, Location

they LIST all the placements for each kid - for instance a student could be listed as many as 30 times for placements they have been in under the above columns:

JohnSmith, The Farm, xx/xx/xx, xx/xx/xx, Topeka

JohnSmith, KVC, xx/xx/xx, xx/xx/xx, Wichita

JohnSmith, Youthville, xx/xx/xx, xx/xx/xx, Lawrence

JohnSmith, The Shelter, xx/xx/xx, xx/xx/xx, Kansas City

JohnSmith, Youthville, xx/xx/xx, xx/xx/xx, Lawrence

and so on... does this make sense? Each placement has to go into it's own field - with no duplicates... I have defined

i hope this makes more sense... i appreciate the help if you can make sense of what i am asking..

[Fitch]

Don't use fields, use related records.

You get one person's file at a time, right?

Import just the name into a Person table, and that table should also have an auto-entered serial number.

Import all the records into a Placements table (don't import the name, just all the other info). Then set the serial number from the Person table into a Person ID in the Placements table.

Relate the two tables by Person ID and you're on your way.

[srh1122]

ok i believe i understand how to do this - however, i do not get one student at a time - i get them all together in one excel file - i believe i can manipulate the data as you said tho-

thanks so much for your help... i'll let you know how it goes - hopefully i can figure this out - i have to do school placements also.. B)

[dreamingmind]

fitch,

take a look at this recent post that deals with a situation very much like yours.

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/191931

Regards,

Don

[srh1122]

I DID IT!

THANK YOU!