Import Dropping Records

[James Hayes]

I have found what I think are cases where Import Records drops/skips records. I have an existing database consisting of 3 tables (Families (323), Students (387), and Contacts (582)). My process was to:

1. Imported all 3 tables to create new forms and then created Families->Students and Families->Contacts Link-To Form fields.

2. Created (1) record in the Students and Contacts tables to establish values for parent_form_id, parent_field_id, and parent_record_id.

3. Exported the Families Form with settings to create a zip file and exported the Students and Families forms separately.

4. Opened the Families and Students Forms that were exported separately from the Families Form. Added the missing fields that are used internally by TapForms (parent_form_id, parent_field_id, and parent_record_id) to connected linked (Students and Contacts) records to the parent (Families) records. Used VLOOKUP (Excel) to lookup and insert the parent_record_id from the Families form.

5. Exported the modified Students and Contacts records to a CSV file.

6. Opened TapForms and deleted all records from the Students and Contacts forms and then imported the CSV data into both files.

The Students table ended up with 387 records, but the Contacts form only had 534 records versus the expected 582. I first noticed this when I did a test import of just Families and Contacts and it worked as expected, but when I later repeated the process for Students I was missing a good number (I did not keep track). After that did not work as expected I deleted everything and then restarted using the steps listed above and ended up still with missing records.

In both cases it was the second related table that had missing records and the records that were missing in both cases were at the beginning of the CSV file. I was able to created a new CSV file with just the missing records and import them separately and they were imported as expected.

I don’t expect a near-term fix on this since you are busy with the CouchBase upgrade and it’s not something a typical user would do.

[Brendan]

This typically happens when there’s a mismatch in the File Encoding between the actual file and what you’ve told Tap Forms to look for on the Import Records screen.

Open the CSV files in something like TextWranger to look at the file encoding and then set Tap Forms to expect that encoding.

Thanks,

Brendan

[James Hayes]

I’ll give it a go. Very subtle and I should have thought of that. This is my second review of your product to see if I can move my wife’s dance studio from Bento to your product and I’m moving. TapForms has matured quite a bit since I last look and the iPhone/iPad applications are outstanding. Thanks for making and improving what is an outstanding product going above and beyond anything Bento could do.

[Author]

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