PlugIns > Client Import Export > Client import file format requirements

Format of your client import file:

•For an example of what the format looks like, just do a test export of existing AyaNova clients to a file, and than open that file using NotePad.

•File must be comma delimited with an extension of .CSV (Excel makes these, as do most export programs. CSV refers to Comma Separated Values)

•The csv file can contain any of the following 24 fields (these correspond to the fields in the client entry screen) in any order:

ClientName, MailAddress, MailCity, MailStateProvince, MailCountry, MailZipPostal, DeliveryAddress, DeliveryCity, DeliveryStateProvince, DeliveryCountry, DeliveryZipPostal, Contact, Other Contacts, Business, Fax, Home, Mobile, Pager, Email, AccountNumber, WebSite, GeneralNotes, TechNotes, PopupNotes

You can also see these in the screenshots of the client entry screen fields that can be imported into

•Fields can be in any order (as you identify when you run the import utility which client entry screen field to import each of your import file columns into)

•Every record must have at minimum the Name field

•If the field contains a comma, a return, or a quotation mark character than that field must be quoted (surrounded by quotation characters)

For example, if the field for MailAddress is 234 Mydrive St, Box 435 you must have quotes around it as in "234 Mydrive St, Box 435" so that the comma is understood to be part of the field not a new field.

•Fields that exceed the length of the field in the AyaNova client entry screen will be truncated.

•Do not have the first row contain header information - just data.

Additional important information about the importing of client records:

•Backup your AyaNova database before importing, there is no undo feature and it's easy to accidentally have a field in the wrong position as the import utility has no way of confirming if a phone number (for example) is in the email address column.

•Use the export feature to export your current clients in AyaNova to a comma separate values file which you can then open up using NotePad and see the correct format as a guide before creating your own for import.

•Comma Separated Values files (.csv files) can be created and opened directly using Microsoft Access, this is handy if you wish to "massage" the data before importing or examine or work with an exported Clients.csv file

•For better performance when importing a large number of clients, do the import from the fastest connection to the database possible, i.e. don't import clients via a dataportal unless performance is not a concern.

•NOTE: In some cases, when you use MS Excel to edit or create a CSV file, the resultant file will not have quotes around the fields that require (i.e. fields with spaces in them or return characters).

•You can easily check by opening the file using Notepad.

•If you get errors trying to import a file you edited in Excel, it is suggested to import it into a table in Microsoft Access.

•Right click on the table in MS Access, select Export…, select CSV from the drop down list and the CSV file will be created correctly with quotes and commas.

•If you do not have MS Access, send the existing CSV file zipped using WinZip to AyaNova Support, along with the full text of the error you received and what you checked so far and we can see if we can import into MS Access for you and create the formatted CSV file.

•With the no charge importexport.csv utility, duplicate clients will not be imported, the client name is examined before each client is imported and if the client name is found to be in AyaNova already then that record is not imported. This means you can re-import the same data safely without getting duplicate records.

•Whereas with the licensed importexport.csv utility, you can update existing client records. See the Import duplicate record update options for Client for more details

•After importing, examine the imported records and ensure fields were imported to the correct area of the client record.