Importing customer accounts

[alexwren]

Hi,

Using Actinic Business I am trying to import some customer accounts from an accounts system (Pegasus Opera II). Although Opera's export facility is quite flexible, it will not create a hierarchical csv (as you get when exporting customer accounts from Actinic).

If I try to import a flat file then I only seem to get the option to map to product fields.

Does anyone know how I can import this flat csv?

If I then import again will it overwrite all my existing accounts? We will need to add new customers to the site as they request access.

Thaks in adance

[Jan]

Customer account information can only be imported using a hierarchicial import file, so you will have to alter you exported 'import' file to get it into the right format. Crystal reports is actually quite a good tool to use to do this but you could also do it with access or you could write a program to do this.

Regards,

[alexwren]

Thanks Jan,

Do you know if anybody has already written anything to do this?

[Jan]

We haven't got anything off the shelf to do this but could give you a quote if you send a copy of your export file over to us.

Regards,

[alexwren]

Hello again,

I have asked the local Pegasus distributor to provide training on using crystal reports to produce their file. They reckon that it is not possible to do this with crystal reports...

Does anybody disagree with this because otherwise they are going to charge us to write a custom export from Opera!

[Jan]

If your accounting package can produce a flat export file you can use any number of tools to convert this into a hierarchical import file.

You could use crystal reports, excel, access, vb, c++ and lots of other things. Use the product that you know the best. You just need to take a file that is in one format and convert it into a different format.

I think that there are probably several people on this forum that could write something for you to convert the data. So it might be worth asking for quotes.

On the other hand if you accounting provider can write a custom export for you that might well be the eaiest option for you to use.

Regards,

[alexwren]

Thanks Jan,

I will speak to the accounting software people first as that way they can look after the whole solution...

If they are too expensive or I am not confident then I will ask for some quotes here. I found loads of info in the help file which I have forwarded them as an RTF (as the help file is too big to email).

If anyone is interested I used a free program to convert it which is really handy. Although it is dos based it was incredibly quick (http://www.geocities.com/mwinterhoff/helpdeco.htm).

Also I am thinking about creating a client friendly application (maybe access based) that the client can use to fill their shop whilst it is in development, then we could use this to import straight into Actinic. Before I do this does anyone know if this already exists?

Cheers