CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I've also occasionally had issues with imports on the "match fields" (those fields which are marked in red on the import mapping screen) when I wasn't actually using them as a match field.

I hope someone has a more "correct" answer for you, but in this instance, if I understand your situation correctly - you only need to import external identifiers to existing records that have matching first/last names -  I'd probably import external identifiers directly into MySQL in civicrm_contact.  Assuming you loaded your CSV file into a table temp_id, something like this should work:
UPDATE `civicrm_contact` a, `temp_id` b SET a.external_identifier = b.external_identifier WHERE a.first_name = b.first_name AND a.last_name = b.last_name

Thanks for the quick reply.

I tried the drupal demo site and I got the same behavior.  I created two contacts, Johnn Doee and Johhn Dooe.  I didn't touch the External ID field.  I created a csv file with those two names and an external ID.  I executed the imports with the Update and Fill options.

In both cases, the special tag I created was set true but the external ID remained blank.

I'm still learning m way around the code so I can't help much with this.  Sorry about that.

I'd appreciate any help you can offer with this.

On the mysql approach.  I'll give  that a try!  Thanks for the idea and the snippet.  I have to admit, I'm a little worried about taking the training wheels off my scooter, but we all have to grow up sometime, eh?

Thanks again,
/Rob

ps i attached the csv file if you want to have a go at it yourself.

again, thank you so much for helping me with this.

I'm still getting my original results.

I tried the import on my system with the "Skip" selection.  I had the duplicate checking based on FirstName and LastName only.  If both of those matched, the "Skip" flag was set so the record wasn't imported.  No changes occurred.  In the case where they matched but the threshold was set higher than the match total, the "Skip" flag wasn't set and the full contact was imported.  I ended up then with two of each Johhn and Johnn.

When I tried other cases, "Update" and "Fill," when there was a match only the new Tag was added to the contact.  No "External Id" changes were recorded.

Actually, the only way I could get an "External ID" to import is when there was no match so a new contact was just created.

I went back and tested this on both the Joomla and Drupal demo sites.  I can't find a way to have the match occur and to have the database "ExternalID" value changed.

Are you sure you didn't just import new contacts rather than change the old ones?  Someone might have erased the originals.

I've attached a new test file.  If you import it, then edit the "External ID" numbers and re-import it with matching on, I really hope the "External ID" values change but I suspect they won't.

Thanks again for helping out on this.  I really appreciate it!

/Rob

Thanks again.  I'll paw around in there some and see if I can figure something out.