Thursday, December 24, 2009

Table Import is not always the ugly stepsister

I shy away from table import whenever possible. I prefer integration manager, or using SQL directly, or eConnect if I can. But sometimes I am reminded of how simple things can be done simply.

For the past few weeks, I have been working on an implementation that goes live Monday 12/28. We have had a fairly tight timeframe, so I have been trying to avoid manual data entry whenever possible. However, I have run up against more than a few things that I needed to import but could not do so with Integration Manager. Table import to the rescue with imports in to some simple tables like...

  • Direct Deposit Header and Lines for Payroll
  • Shipping Methods
  • Customer Items

All of these table structures are fairly friendly to table import, and result in simple file uploads. Shipping methods even came up late in the game, and it took less than 10 minutes to build and load the file.

So why am I writing about this? Well, I know I could use the reminder that older tools that I regularly dismiss can actually come in quite handy :)

Please share any of your table import success stories, and I will be happy to update the post to include.

A few other uses courtesy of Steve Chapman and Frank Harnelly:

  • High volume imports even if the destinations are available in Integration Manager, like Customers (1,000,000+ records in minutes) or Chart of Accounts
  • Fixed Assets General Info
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4 comments:

  1. Steve ChapmanDecember 24, 2009 at 12:29 PM

    Once I used Table Import to add about a million new customers into a company. It worked great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Frank HamellyDecember 27, 2009 at 10:17 AM

    I recently used table import to create a new chart of accounts and import fixed asset general info.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RSDecember 28, 2009 at 11:29 AM

    I've a client import SOP orders using the table imports, and they would run checklinks/reconcile before processing these orders. In a single user environment, where IM or any other integrations/import tools are too expensive, this method worked perfectly for them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownOctober 27, 2018 at 8:07 AM

    I am trying to use table import to import weekly payroll hours including jobs. We use Wennsoft for job costs. Can someone show me how to build the tables?

    ReplyDelete