Import/Merge

[Mike Schwartz]

I would like to import additional fields from an Excel or csv file into an existing form and merge them into existing records.

For example, I have a form named Foster Dogs, which contains the fields Name, Gender, and Breed. Assume that the contents of the Name field are unique for each record.

Now suppose I have an external 2-column list that contains the same Names in the first column, and their Weight in the second column. So what I want to do is add a Weight field to my Foster Dogs form, and then import the info from the external file. I want Tap Forms to match values for the “key field” (Name) and then import the corresponding Weight for the existing record.

I figured out that I can use Multi-column list view like a spreadsheet, and copy a range of cells out of Excel and simply paste them into Tap Forms (very cool, is this feature documented?). Will that work if there are line breaks within a single field value? Is there any cleaner way to do this?

Thanks,
Mike

[Mike Schwartz]

Two more things:

(1) In playing around with copy/paste from Excel to Tap Forms, I observed that a column of numbers in Excel will paste into a Text field, but will not paste into a Number field. Is this pasting feature limited to text?

(2) Possible solution? I found this in the documentation: “EXPORT RECORD ID. By enabling this option, you’re telling Tap Forms to export the values that uniquely identify each record in your form. Tap Forms will add a column called form_record_id to your CSV file. If you import a file into Tap Forms which has a form_record_id column, it will search for matching records and update their field values rather than adding new records to your form.”

==> So it seems like I could first Export a CSV file with the unique record ID plus just the dog names, use Excel to add a column with the Weight data, and then import it back into Tap Forms and have it just insert the Weight values as desired. Does that sound like it would work? Would still prefer a cleaner solution if one exists.

[Brendan]

Hi Mike,

Yes, that’s what the export Record ID function is for. It lets you update the records outside of Tap Forms and import them back into Tap Forms and it will match with the field names in your form and update the record values. Make sure your field names are all unique though or else you can cause a mess. Tap Forms uses the field name in the header row of the CSV file to match up with the field names in the form.

Make a backup file before doing this.

Since Tap Forms 5 also allows for multiple database documents, you could also create a test document and play around with importing and exporting before you do that on your main database document.

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