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Author Topic: Contact Import Suggestion  (Read 658 times)

katesneed

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Contact Import Suggestion
May 11, 2014, 02:29:53 pm
I am importing contacts into Civi from a legacy database. In the legacy database individuals were not always entered as individuals but couples were entered as the same record. Before importing we are separating everyone into their own record, however by doing this, their is no longer a unique ID from the legacy db for each individual. Should/can I assign the "couple" id from the legacy db to as the external id for both of the new unique individuals in Civi. I think that would allow me to connect contributions and attendance at events from the legacy db to both of the people in the "couple"?!

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated- never worked with a legacy database where people were not entered as individuals.
Thanks

joanne

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Re: Contact Import Suggestion
May 11, 2014, 02:54:10 pm
External Ids have to be unique, so you won't be able to use that Id for each individual in the couple.

CiviCRM has a contact record type of household.  I have never used them, so am not exactly sure how they work, but perhaps you need to import your couples as households using the external ID for the household.  That will allow you to link the contributions and event attendances to the household. 

If you want every one in there as an individual also you can link individuals to the household with relationships.

petednz

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Re: Contact Import Suggestion
May 11, 2014, 05:18:10 pm
in the past, where we had eg Jane and Bob in one line with an Ext ID of 345 - we imported as 2 contacts with Ext IDs of 345a and 345b for example

not sure if you will see that as the way to go
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katesneed

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Re: Contact Import Suggestion
May 12, 2014, 01:01:20 pm
Thanks All- I know I do not want to use households- did my research on that. Thanks petendz, I will try that method perhaps to separate the contacts.

CiviTeacher.com

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Re: Contact Import Suggestion
May 12, 2014, 02:45:27 pm
It may be difficult if other records (contributions, event participation) are tied to one Id number that represents two people.   If you split the contact apart into two contacts, which individual gets credit for the contribution?

On a more philosophical level, occasionally it is ok to have an individual contact that represents two people such as First Name "Bob & Mary" Last Name "Duncan" on the understanding that they interact with your organization as a couple and only as a couple.  It depends largely on your goals and how to interact with your constituency.
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katesneed

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Re: Contact Import Suggestion
May 16, 2014, 07:11:05 am
CiviTeacher- I agree with the philosophical comment, but from a best practice approach, wouldn't it be better to have them listed independently? What if only one of them attends an event? I am torn between what to do!?

Jeremy Proffitt

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Re: Contact Import Suggestion
May 16, 2014, 07:57:56 am
From a financial perspective, they would be a unit, but they would still have individual records that can register for events, etc. Individuals in a family would be related to each other and to the household. This will let you report in both ways.
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  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
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