How To: Import Mailing List



WARNING icon
 Importing Data from Mailing List is an Advanced User feature.
Please ensure you understand the process, read all the instructions and backup your data before use.

Overview

Khaos Control provides a facility to allow details of customers (or suppliers!) to be imported, for example where you have purchased a mailing list from a list broker. When run, this routine populates the company, address and contacts tables with data from the mailing list.

The [ Import Mailing List / Company / Contacts | Detail ] screen contains many options. For a description of these please see the Customer Import Detail page.

A checklist is available for experienced users.

Process

  1. Before importing the data, there are some actions you will need to take:
    1. Prepare the data;
    2. Create records in KHAOS (live) lookup tables;
    3. Construct the data map in KHAOS (live).
  2. We recommend you first import the data into a TESTING database:
    1. Run CopyLive2Test on your server;
    2. Import the data into KHAOS_TESTING database;
    3. Check that data has imported correctly;
    4. Rectify any errors in the (live) data map;
    5. Rectify any errors in the original data;
    6. Repeat this process (starting with running CopyLive2Test) until you are confident that the data is importing without error.
  3. Import the data into your LIVE database:
    1. Stop others using the system (recommended);
    2. Backup the database;
    3. Import the data;
    4. Check & rectify any errors in the imported data;
    5. De-dupe your database (Optional);
    6. Reset any data fields as required;
    7. Final QA check;
    8. Backup the database;
    9. Start using Khaos Control.

Initial Set-up

  1. Open a Customer screen (show me how).
  2. On the Customer List screen go to the Other Actions icon drop down menu button to display the Other Actions drop-down menu.
  3. Select Import Data from Mailing List.
  4. Press Ctrl+N or click the New item icon is the button bar's NEW button .
  5. Give your Setup a name so you can recall it easily if you want to repeat the process.

Hints and Tips

  1. When importing customers it is advisable to set up a new temporary Customer Class (see [ System Data | Company Classes ]). You can then import the customers into this customer classification so that, if there is a mistake made, you can delete the customers in the class (see Block Change Selected Items in Company - Other Actions Menu) and start the import again. Once the import is complete and the results are correct, update the temporary customer class to the final customer class.
  2. To import a file, it is necessary to map the position of a certain column or field within the source text file to the corresponding field within the customer/supplier record.
  3. Assigning the mappings is achieved by dragging the column's number, from the list of numbers on the left, onto the relevant field that currently contains a -1. All the boxes are labelled with the appropriate company field that they represent. The ones in red indicate required fields; Company Name, Contact Surname and Address PostCode. There are three sections of fields that may be mapped to date in the source text file; these contain fields relevant to Company, Address and Contact. So for example, if the company name is the third column in the source text file, drag the number 3 from the list onto the 'Name' box in the boxed area labelled, Company Data.
  4. Select the mappings for all of the fields that are to be imported from the source text file. If you have other fields which cannot be directly mapped, there are three mapping slots available for the Note field against the company, so three extra pieces of information can be included using these. The Note mappings can be accompanied by a description of this extra information, which will appear in the Note field before the import data.
  5. For each mapping box, there is a 'case' drop-down list next to it; this indicates whether the data shown will be imported as upper-case, lower-case, mixed (which mean the first letter of each word is capitalised) or 'as-is' (unchanged). Notice that the postcode is set to upper case by default and the email address is set to lower-case by default. If the field does not have an associated case select drop down then it is imported as-is.
  6. Change the company type and data protection flag to values that you feel are appropriate and check the 'supplier' box if the records that are being imported are suppliers and not customers.

Completing the Set-up

  1. Set the 'start at line number' field to 2 since most text files contain column title information in the first line. If this is not true for your file, change this number to 1.
  2. Select the text file from which the data will be imported using the yellow open folder button at the top of the form.
  3. For each column in your import file add the column number to the field it will be imported into in Khaos Control, for example if column 8 in your import file represents the PostCode either drag and drop the number 8 from the ruler on the left or manually enter 8 into the PostCode field.
    Note: some fields are required and have a pink background.
  4. Press Ctrl+S or click the disk icon is the button bar's SAVE button to save.

Start the Import

Press the import button button to begin importing the companies and contacts. The following popups will change depending on the your selections and any previous imports you have done.

Notes

  1. Before the main import process begins, if either the Search Existing Data / Import Data options have been ticked, the system will pre-process the data searching for possible duplicates. If any are found a message will be displayed showing the count of duplicates found, giving the user a choice of processing the duplicates as multiple contacts. If not the system will create a new company entry for each file entry.
  2. At the end of the import a minor error log may be created. This list, for example will contain any data not imported, and the reasons for this exclusion so the user can check to make sure everything is as expected and that the matching has been performed correctly. For example, if a contact was found to already be in the database it would have not been imported again if the user chose to treat duplicates as multiple contact.

See Also


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