CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi there

I am having to delete all my contacts records and import them as new because the import update doesnt work. I originally only updated from 446 to 45 because the yes/no wouldn't work but now i cant simply import those fields to update the records. The first columns in my data file are first name, last name and email address but no changes occur.

Thanks Jodee

Hey there,

Not sure how old your install is but

delete all my contacts records and import them as new

should be a last resort since if those contacts have other related objects like events, memberships, relationships, etc, you would have to import those as well.

import update doesnt work

might be an idea to expand on this a little so that people can suggest other approaches.

whilst initial import allows for both standard and custom fields to be imported in one go, if you need to update you have to split your file into two imports - one for standard fields and the second for custom fields (with first name last name and email for identification).

This wasn't the case last time I used the import functionality. What kind of custom fields are they? You might want to consider following these instructions for this issue: http://civicrm.org/bug-reporting