CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

you could potentially argue that this is a feature / bug / missing feature

I just checked the code:

if we are not updating with internal contact id as one of the fields, then we require either first name and last name and/or email as part of the fields. In your case you are using OldMemberID as a replacement for the contact id (which is valid), but however triggers a bug in the code. I suspect the fix for this is not trivial

lobo

there are two different aspects of the issue:

1. what fields do we check to see if there is a match? A match may or may not exist with any rule

2. what are the minimum fields required to create a contact. The set of rules out here is fixed. for individual we need  first and last name OR email, orgs needs org name, household needs a household name.

So import enforces the second rule in all cases (except when you supply the internal contact id since that guarantees a contact already exists). This is the error that is triggered in your case.

hence i dont think it is a very clear case of a missing feature. Please do adjust the documentation to make it more clear for now

lobo

we require either first name and last name and/or email as part of the fields

Maybe I am misreading the syntax. Does the above me I can do it just on email, or only email + first.

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,952.0.html seems quite definite

For Contact Import, the required fields are EITHER:
* First Name AND Last Name

OR

* Email Address

So why if I am just importing a list of emails, that I then want to add to an existing Group am I getting this error report and no joy?

Line Number   Reason   Email - Home
2   Required fields not found for Individual : first_name   a.bain@minorplanet.co.nz

Same problem on demo (and I note that the instruction to "Join new contacts to existing group(s)" at step 3 is a bit misleading if one is importing existing contacts in order to add them to a group, as is the case for me. Now, do I know how to file an issue?
Does this do it? http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-2839