Duplicate Records

[Jonesxx]

Hi,

I want to import 2000 records into our Goldmine database, however some of the records to be imported are already on the database. Is there a way within Goldmine where I can cross reference these records to ensure that I am not importing duplicates. The only alternative I can think of is importing the records and then individually going through all 2000 of them to make sure they are not duplicates. Thanks

 

[M8KWR]

I do not know if products like Inaport or Goldbox could do this for you.

The way i do it is through Access, link the goldmine table into Access and then import the file you want to import, and cross reference them that way, and then mark the records you do not want to import.

If you do need any help in achieving this in Access please let me know, I can walk you through it.

Hope any of this helps you find a solution.

 

[Jonesxx]

Hi,

I do not have very much experience with Access, I will be doing the import into from Excel in the form of a DBF file. Therefore if you know how to do this from Excel I'd appreciate any feedback. Also if you do know how to do this from Excel, please could you explain how to link the GM table to Excel as I am not sure how this is done. Thanks

 

[M8KWR]

I do not know if you are aware of an issue with excel export to dbf files. If you have fields that are greater then 255 characters, excel will not create the dbt files which contain this column, access does it correctly every time, and i have no issues.

You can open a file a goldmine file in excel easy. But i have never linked one.

I am quite good at access, so this is why i use this application, saves us having to buy an application to do it for us, when i can do it myself.

You need to cross reference fields against each other such as compnay name, postcode, lastname etc. I do not know how you would achieve this in excel, access is built for doing this type of thing.

If you started to use Access you would use it over excel all the time, and be able to many more things.

I use access as a reporting tools linked to goldmine. But we are in the process of upgrading to 6.6 and moving reporting to Crystal.

What report tools do you use?

If you do want me to go through hwo to set this up in access please let me know.

If you want, depending on how sensitive the data is, email me it, and I will produce you an access file of how to cross reference it, so you can see hwo it works.

 

[Leighton21]

When you use the GoldMine import utility there is a button called profile options in the Field Mappings dialogue. If you click this button and then select a Match Field. The next dialogue will ask you what to do if it finds a math eg overwrite, ignore etc. I have used this before and it works fine. The proble is if the incoming field used fr the match field then a new record will be added and only one match field can be specified. For example if you have a phone number 12345678 and the incoming information is (123)45678 it will not recognize as a match. Tools like inaport and GoldBox allow you define a number of match fields so it is more likely to pick up a duplicate. I am not sure about GoldBox however inaport can also use soundex criteria on the incoming matchfield so if the incoming information phonetically matches the stored information then it will recognize as a duplicate

 

[Jonesxx]

Leighton21,

I never realised that this was an option when importing records so thanks for your input as I have picked up on something new. Unfortunately though version 6 (I'm not sure about other versions) does not give the option to merge and purge records when selecting profile options from teh Mappings Dialogue screen. The options are to either overwrite the existing record, add the duplicate record or do not import the record at all. It would be more useful if I could actually merge the duplicates together, therefore the only way I can work around this is by importing all records from Excel and then carrying out a merge purge.

 

[Leighton21]

Jonesxx,

If you select overwrite it does not overwrite the entire record only the fields that you are importing. As an example we have used GoldMine at one of our sites for a local electorate and peoples phone numbers may change or a persons maiden name may change. If you have a match field that can match the record eg company (not a good example for an electorate however) then only the contact details are overwritten, you can also switch off import balnk fields just in case the new record overwrites existing phone numbers with a blank value. All history, pending and details will be left intact. If you want to test this create two test contact records (in a test environment) export them from goldmine (contact, company, and phone are enough) add a few details, pending and histories. Change a value in the exported file and then import it and select overwrite to see how this works. The reason that you need to export two records is that GoldMine has a bug when importing a single record. Basically it does not work unless you have 2 or more records in your exported list.