Importing data for many existing contacts of different types using contact ID

[Sean Madsen]

It seems that when I import contacts into CiviCRM I need to choose the contact type because the de-dupe strategy depends on contact type. But I have some data that includes the contact ID so de-duping should be unnecessary? Is it possible to import this data at once even if it includes individuals, households, and organizations? When I try I get the following error:

CiviCRM has detected mismatched contact IDs. These records have not been updated.

The import works if I split it up into three separate imports, by contact type. But that's just kind of a pain, and I'd love to have a way of importing them all at once.

Why exactly am I trying to do this? ...We have a custom field on contact records called "special thanks" to store the name of the staff member who should be responsible for personalizing and hand-addressing any appeals that get sent to the contact. Then when a staff member resigns, we need to go re-assign most of their "special thanks" contacts to other staff members. I've found the best way is to export, change (in spreadsheet), and re-import this data since it's a process that involves lots of people making lots of small decisions. Just trying to speed up the workflow a bit by allowing the import to take it all in at once.

[Eileen]

Sometimes using the api import works better than the built in one

https://civicrm.org/extensions/api-csv-import-gui

it has different restrictions & limitations