There are two main reasons to import data into Membership Keeper: 1) importing data from a non-Membership Keeper file such as Microsoft Excel or 2) importing data from an older version of Membership Keeper into a newer version of Membership Keeper. This second type of importing is part of an upgrading procedure and is NOT dealt with in this section called Importing.
Importing Via the Interface File
When importing data, first "clean up" your data in the file that contains the data you want to import. For example, if your database contains students from last year, then delete those students out of your source file (make a back up copy first!) so they don't end up in your database twice when your data is imported.
To import Staff, Student or Parent/Contact information, click on the appropriate tab and then click on List in the blue bar. In the List Layout, hover over the icon with the downward pointing icon in the blue bar and make sure the yellow tool tip says "Import records from other file." Click on the icon and a window will open. Select the file that contains the data to import. Click Open. In the Import Field Mapping window, align the fields from the data file with the fields from the Membership Keeper file. If at first you don't see your data in the source file, click on the arrow buttons below the source area to scan through to look for records. Once fields properly aligned, click the field mapping symbol one or more times to indicate the field mapping you want to perform (such as "import this field" or "don't import this field"). If you are only importing new students, make sure you select "Import Action > Add New Records". See FileMaker® Help for more detailed information regarding importing data.
If the file that you are importing from contains Staff, Student and/or Parent data all in one file, it will take several phases to import that data. For example, first import just that staff data, then import just the student data, then just import the Parent/Contact information. Keep in mind, Parent/Contact information is housed in two separate tables: Supporters and Households. The Supporters table houses individuals data such as name and interests and the Households Table houses the address and telephone numbers for the members of the household (Supporters). For example, to import Parent/Contact information, import the names of the individuals to the Supporters table and import the address to the Household table. Mothers and Fathers may need to be entered in separate passes depending on how your data file is set up. Keep in mind that Supporters will have to be manually linked to Housesholds so you will want to import a name along with the Household data so you can find it to link it to Supporter data. The name in the Household file should ultimately be a title for the household like "Kathy & Bob Smith" (FYI ~ good etiquette says the woman's name should be listed first and it is neater if your data is consistent) but you can import a name from your data file into the zb_HouseholdName.t field and change the data to an appropriate title later.
In this example, the address and contact data is being imported into the Households table. Take note of the fields that have an arrow between them. This are the only fields that will receive data. The father's last name is being imported into the Sort Name.t field so that the record can more easily be matched to the Supporter records imported next.
In this example, the mother's name is being imported into the Supporters table. Take note of the fields that have an arrow between them. This are the only fields that will receive data.
In this example, the father's name is being imported into the Supporters table. Take note of the fields that have an arrow between them. This are the only fields that will receive data.
In this example, the student's name and contact information is being imported into the Student table. Take note of the fields that have an arrow between them. This are the only fields that will receive data.
Depending on how the file that is being imported is set up, the import windows may or may not look like the example screen shots above.
Importing Via the Data File
For greater control over importing data, some data may need to be imported via the data file.
The following abilities are only accessible to users with Administrative Privileges:
Before importing records, choose About > Scripts and print a current Data Summary sheet of the number of records that are currently in your Membership Keeper database. This will serve as a handy reference to confirm changes to the number of records after performing an import. It is highly recommended that importing/exporting is done with FileMaker set to single-file user.
To import records:
1) Open the MembershipKeeperData.fmp12 file that will receive the imported records.
2) Choose Import Records in the File menu.
3) Select the type.
4) Locate the source file in the files list and Click Save. You see the Import Field Mapping dialog box.
5) Drag field names on the right (destination) to match fields on the left (source).
6) In the column between the “source” and “destination” field names, click so that an arrow appears between the columns. The arrow indicates that the import for that pair of fields will occur. Click again to disable import for that pair of fields.
7) Click Add New Records to append the imported records or Replace Data in Current Found Set to overwrite existing records.
8) Click Import.
Recommendation: When initially entering data from other software, if you need to clean up your data to match the fields by writing scripts, make a new FileMaker File with the proper fields, import data into that file, clean up the data with scripts if necessary and then import the data.
Exporting Via the Data File
To export records:
1) Open the file you want to export.
2) Choose Export Records from the File menu.
3) Select a file format from the Type list (Mac OS) or the Save as type list (Windows).
4) Type a name for the export file and specify where you want it saved.
5) Click Save. You see the Export Field Order dialog.
6) To change the order of fields for exporting, drag the arrow next to the field name in the list.
7) To exclude fields from export, select the field name in the list on the left and click the Clear button.
8) Click Save.
9) If “exported date” is not correct, check to make sure your computer’s date and time is correct. If application has not been quit since the date has changed, then the “exported date” will not be correct.
See Filemaker® Help for more information.