Importing External Data into ChilliDB – Quick Checklist
When importing data into ChilliDB, from an Excel spreadsheet for example, there are number of things to check first to ensure that this process can be completed successfully and efficiently.
Required Fields
Please note: to avoid any delays in the data loading process, if some of your required fields are missing data, we will place ‘unknown’ or another appropriate dummy value in that field to allow us to upload your data into your ChilliDB system. Once your data is uploaded, you will be able to edit these fields to change the values to the correct information.
The first step is to ensure that there are fields in your data that coincide with the required fields in ChilliDB. Three sample spreadsheets have been included with this package, showing the required fields highlighted in light yellow.
Required fields for Organisations:
Organisation Categorisation
Organisation Name
Desirable fields for Organisations:
Source/external ID
Required fields for Contacts:
Contact Categorisation
Contact First Name
Contact Surname
Organisation Name (Note: Contacts are always associated with an Organisation but if this field is left blank, the contact will be associated with a default Organisation called INDIVIDUALS. These can be changed later if needed.)
Desirable fields for Contacts:
Source/external ID
*Note: the desirable fields are useful when future bulk updates to data are required as this can help prevent duplicates being created.
Further data considerations
Another thing to ensure is that the data within each field is consistent. Some important points to consider and check before uploading your data (or sending it to us to upload for you) are:
No blank fields in required fields
- This will lead to either an error or the data simply not being loaded
Data types are the same
- Example: Date of Birth – ensure that these are either dates or blank (as this is not a required field). Entries such as ‘unknown’ will lead to errors when uploading.
If uploading a contact person for an Organisation, separate the names into two fields (or three if including a middle name)
- Example: First Name, Surname - Avoid putting both names in the same cell as ChilliDB has both the First Name and Surname as separate required fields.
Scan through your data for duplicates before uploading or sending the data to us.
- While the data uploader tool checks for duplicate records, sometimes there are occasions where a record has been entered twice by different users, and there may be typos or contrasting information entered that will cause issues. These will then become duplicate records in your system.
Extra/Custom Fields
Extra or custom fields can be created as part of this process. Important points to consider when adding fields during the data upload process include:
This needs to be done for any extra columns at the end of the spreadsheet (anything outside of the fields available to you in ChilliDB). If you have information in your database that doesn't match up to a field that exists in ChillDB, a new field must be created).
As above, ensure that the data is consistent in terms of the type of data it contains.
- For example: Avoid entering text in a cell that is meant to contain dates.
Sensitive Data
One last point to consider is if you are asking us to upload sensitive data, we recommend providing desensitised or sample data that matches the fields you require us to use when we go through the mapping process. This enables us to set up the data loader tool first for testing purposes and then to upload your actual data once this is done.
Further Help
For further assistance, go to https://helpdesk.chillidb.com/ where you will be able to post questions about technical issues you are having with your ChilliDB system for our help desk assistants to answer. Please be aware that you will need to register as a Help Desk user first before you can start posting questions