Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields

• 10-25-2011, 5:45 PM

  23918

  gljudson Joined about 7 months ago Posts 11

  Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote I've notice that there are Contact fields - street address, city, etc. - as well as Work Address fields.  Plus, we've added Home Address fields to our database. However, when I import a batch of members, the Contact fields aren't getting loaded, since I'm putting everything into Work and Home addresses. I have several questions. 1.  What is the difference between the fields I see when I go to Settings -> Contact Settings -> Common Fields, versus Settings -> Membership settings -> Membership fields?  It appears as if they're completely different. 2.  What would happen if I deleted the Contact address fields and replaced them with the Membership Home address fields?  It seems to me that even if I name them the same, they won't actually *be* the same since it appears like they're completely different field sets, as it were. Is that true? 3.  If that IS true, how can I get the Home Address fields in the Membership field set to appear in the Contact address fields?  It doesn't look like I can map a single input field to multiple database fields on the import. Or ... am I just horribly confused and there's a simpler answer?? Thank you!

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• 10-26-2011, 1:57 PM

  23929 in reply to 23918

  jim Joined about 4 years ago Toronto Posts 533

  Re: Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote "Common fields" and "Membership fields" are completely separate and independent of each other. Common fields apply to everyone in the system (donors, email subscribers, members etc), while "Membership fields" apply to actual members only, see http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Customizing+your+contact+database+fields. e.g. if you want everyone in the system to fill in "Home Address" then you create that field as a Common field. On the other hand if you want members only to fill in "Work Address" (i.e. you don't want donors or event attendees filling in this field) then you create it as a Membership field. Also note that once you create a field as a Common field the system will not allow you to create a membership field with the same name. Jim Sympathy, Fluid Apricot

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• 10-26-2011, 5:45 PM

  23933 in reply to 23929

  gljudson Joined about 7 months ago Posts 11	Re: Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote Thank you! that's helpful!
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• 10-28-2011, 12:31 PM

  23955 in reply to 23933

  Jennn Joined about 7 months ago Posts 38

  Re: Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote I have a related question. We currently have street address fields only as Member fields. We would like to be able to store street addresses for both members and contacts. What is the easiest method to change the street address fields from being Member fields to Common fields? This is the best set of steps I can think of for doing this, but I'm wondering if there's a better way. Create Common fields for street, city, state, zip. (These would need to be named somewhat differently than the existing fields?) Download spreadsheet of all members. Upload the spreadsheet, and during the field mapping step, map the former Member address fields into the Common address fields. Verify that the data are there. Delete the Member address fields.  Would this create any negative repercussions? I assume I could make the settings such that members who log in can edit their own address from the Common address fields?

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• 10-28-2011, 1:29 PM

  23957 in reply to 23955

  jim Joined about 4 years ago Toronto Posts 533

  Re: Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote In this case I would export the entire contact database first, then proceed with deleting the membership fields, re-create them as Common fields (with exactly the same names) and finally upload the Excel file you saved earlier. This way no field mapping etc is necessary, see also https://support.wildapricot.com/KB/a75/turn-membership-field-into-common-field-change-field-type.aspx   Jim Sympathy, Fluid Apricot

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• 10-28-2011, 3:28 PM

  23958 in reply to 23957

  Jennn Joined about 7 months ago Posts 38	Re: Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote Thank you! Sorry to ask a question already in the documentation.
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• 10-28-2011, 4:43 PM

  23959 in reply to 23958

  jim Joined about 4 years ago Toronto Posts 533	Re: Import: Contact fields vs. Member fields Reply Quote No problem, we do have quite a lot of help pages and without someone pointing them out they can be hard to find. Jim Sympathy, Fluid Apricot
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