CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hoping someone can confirm the steps I need to take in order to import some new data for some existing contacts.

What I have is a list of names and a new position that is an additional multichoice option in an existing custom field in a custom group.

I cannot confirm that all the names have been correctly spelt (ie some will have Mike when their civi record is Michael).

SOme of the people will have other roles that are already selected in the multichoice therefore I cannot just import the First + Last with a column with 'XXX Role' in it, as this will overwrite any other roles they have that are in this custom field.

This seems an onerous way of doing it (though I can see it will work) and am hoping someone will point out a much simpler method.

1/ Import Names and add to new group. (check that I haven't invented some new people, if I have, delete those entries and add the existing relevant entry to my new group)

2/ Export new group including data from existing custom field (eg 'YYY Role' 'ZZZ Role')

3/ concatenate this data with the new label (so I get for person A XXX Role, YYY Role, etc)

4/ Import list again

I guess the other option at 2/ would be to Batch Update by Profile
And the other option at 1/ would be to export entire database and do a VLookup.