create new primary key but keep all relationships working

[etsmarines]

I have a database that has many relationships. The problem I am facing is that the data I am bringing into my database has a different primary keys that the ones already made in filemaker. I want to rerun all my contacts so that the Id's match the ones in the database I am extracting from. How can I do this and not lose the functionality of my relationships?

Thanks Again,

Erik

[David Jondreau]

It's a little unclear what you're doing.

Do you have existing records in your Contacts table that you adding information to from a new file? Or are you adding brand-new records to the Contacts table that had existing records? Or are you adding brand-new records to an empty table?

I'm assuming the middle option...

Don't worry about it. Your PKs don't match, so what? Do users actually use the PK?

If you're really hung up on it, you'll need a new field to hold the new PK, Replace[] the new PK into that field, go to each of the related records and Replace[] the Foreign Key with the related new PK.

You're going to make mistakes, so build a script to do this, and save backups often.

[etsmarines]

I am adding new informatio to existing records. To be very specific I have a contacts tables and a donations table. They are linked by a unique Id so that in the contacts table I can look at a portal from the donations table and see all the donations that that individual has given. Her now lies my issue I am adding another 2000 donations into my contacts table but the ID's that will link them up are completely different for these existing contacts. In other words I have a contact named AL with an ID 5888 but I am now inmporting new donations for him and the only thing I can match on is by unique ID. The id that he has connected to all the donations I am importing now from this table is 10125. So I do not know how to display this information an import it so it matches his name in the contacts.

[David Jondreau]

What information is there that can link the new Al to the old Al?