Carl, You tried to help with this some time back. Since then I've done some homework. In an attempt to edit our legacy Question & Answer legacy database, I deleted records that showed no payments between 1/1/1996 and 12/31/00. The intent was, also, to manage, first ,in ebase those records that were static and complete before attempting, second, to update ebase with evolving year 2001 records: 1) In Q&A, the found set that showed no payment in amount fields (retrieve specification, =, "equal to nothing") '96 through '00 was deleted. 2) The remaining records (showing payments '96 through '00) were exported (cdv). 3) Legacy records for these years and their record numbers were imported into ebase, names first, payments second--each with legacy ID numbers mapped appropriately in ebase. 4) About 1% of 1500 payment records were designated by ebase as having "No Matching Payment Number." 5) A careful study of this rejected set of 1% of the payments that did not "match" revealed no obvious reason why they didn't (except for several records in Q&A that were lacking ID numbers). 6) In an effort to bring things into line, the individual records in the 1% set were given new legacy ID numbers sequentially to the largest number in Q&A and imported again. (Some of the records were ebase dupes, some were not. The dupes were deleted on import.) 7) Fearing to leave the familiar too soon, year 2001 new members and payments have been entered into Q&A* rather than directly into ebase and then an attempt to update ebase was made by exporting and importing just the year 2001 records. 8) The assumption that this import would bring things into line proved to be mistaken. 9) No-Matching-Payment-in-ebase messages are still generated when payments are imported and there is still no apparent reason for the cause. 10) Frankly I am confused and am to blame for anyone I have confused. 11) Is there any orderly way to make record numbers in the Legacy database that don't have Matching Record Numbers in ebase match? --------------------------------- *Q&A is not just familiar. We're considering using it as a primary record and backup for names and payments. It is a DOS program, running on DOS v.3.1 on a 436 machine. It is faster than ebase on the machines that we use and is never corrupted or crashes, usually not even if you close it the wrong way. The ebase import routines for cleansing name and payment information implement Q&A beautifully and, of course, ebase's other great features are incomparable. Henry Bookout North Fork Environmental Council POB 799 Mattituck, NY 11952 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------ Reminder to each recipient: To change your list account preferences, go to http://email.sparklist.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=support and enter the email address you used to subscribe to the ebase support list:: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- ebase - Relationship Management for Nonprofits, http://www.ebase.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------
