Changing phone numbers to primary using export/import, but fails

[Flying]

Hi all!

I followed this excellent advice on how to change which phone number that are primary.

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,21235.msg117772.html#msg117772

However, I have some phone numbers in the database that are set only with phone location, and not type.
That is;
12345678 Home mobile (this is the preferred case)
23456789 Home            (this causes the problem)

When I am trying to import the phone numbers back into Civi, I don't get the first row of import to be primary, because numbers like "23456789 Home" is still present in Civi, blocking the way for the imported ones to be primary.

The sensible solution would be to first update "23456789 Home" to be an empty field, but I cannot do that, since the import wizard only allows me to do import if I select both phone location and phone type.

Anyone got any good ideas?

[JonGold]

I thought that both phone type and location were required fields.  Is there something about your situation that makes not having a phone type desirable?  If not, perhaps use "Batch Update Via Profile" or a SQL query to set all the phone types, then proceed with the export/import?

[Flying]

No, it is not desirable, but a fault after earlier (SQL-)import.

I ended up exporting all numbers from the SQL,
then rearranging them using Excel,
then deleting all numbers using SQL,
and then re-importing only the mobile numbers, using the import-UI

Maybe I will import the land-lines later on as well.



A major problem for me was that if you have phone numbers without a type, then it is not possible to search or export them in the UI, but only possible to view them in the contact summary of each contact...