About Importing Change List Entries

You can import change list entries from external database or spreadsheet files of the following types:

• Lotus 123
• MS Excel
• dBase III and higher
• FoxPro and Clipper
• ASCII comma-separated text file

Item Number Data Format Requirements

Regardless of import file type, changes to be imported must conform to the item number data format, which has the following common features:

• Each row or line represents one (1) item record.
• Each row or line must contain the following five (5) fields in the order shown here:

  Field1	Field2	Field3	Field4	Field5
  Old Item Number	New Item Number	Action Type	Structure	Description

• Field Three — Action Type — must contain one of the following predefined values:

  Field Contents	Action Type
  0	Change
  1	Combine
  2	Copy

• Fields Four and Five — Structure and Description — must contain data even if you don't intend to change them. The following table shows field entry options and their results:

  Field Contents	Change Result
  Original data	The original data replaces itself (useful for correcting typos, etc.).
  Changed data	The changed data replaces the original data.
  Single blank space (no quotes required)	The original data is left untouched. Do not use this field entry option when combining item numbers.

File Type Requirements

In addition to the item number data format requirements, each of the supported file types has some requirements:

• ASCII delimited text files

  The first row is the title row; no other information except the title should appear in this row. If you don't want to include titles, leave this row blank.

  Commas separate the fields and each field's contents must be enclosed within quotes.

  Note: You can use Windows Notepad to create this file.

• MS Excel files

  The first row is the title row; no other information except the title should appear in this row. If you don't want to include titles, leave this row blank.

  Columns separate the fields and each field's contents must be enclosed in its own spreadsheet cell.

• Lotus 123 files

  File layout is the same as MS Excel file.

• dBase III and higher files

  File Import only recognizes three DBASE data types: String, Numeric, and Date. Any other data types such as memo fields will be ignored.

  Consequently, fields must observe the following formats:

  Field	Must be formatted as
  Old Item Number	a string field
  New Item Number	a string field
  Action Type	either a string or an integer field
  Structure	a string field
  Description	a string field

• FoxPro and Clipper files

  File layout is the same as dBase III.