Importing Projects
Imports into projects can be a little tricky, as you've noticed, but once you know the tricks you'll be able to get you projects in without much trouble.
The idea here is that you have to import some of the project information into the Projects table, and then import the project dates into the appointments table. The trick then, is how to make sure the appointment records you import are related to your project records. Here is how I do it.
1. Create a new temporary field in the Project's file called "LegacyID"
2. Then import your project information into projects, lining up the primary key from your file with "LegacyID". If your file doesn't have a primary key (a unique ID for each project) the you'll want to make one in your file and serialize so each project has its own unique ID. When you perform the import, check "Perform auto-updates..." as On. so that each project gets a unique serial ID created by SeedCode. You may want to import your project's status into ProjectStatus, providing you go back to the Admin tab and update SeedCode's list of "types" to include your project's statuses.
3. Then create a new field in *your* file called SeedCode ID. Create a second new field in your file called "one" that is a calculation equal to the number 1.
4. Import from SeedCode's projects table BACK into your project's table, using the option to update matching records in the found set. The match fields will be SeedCode's LegacyID and the unirue ID from your file. The only field you'll import from SeedCode is the ProjectID_kprime and you'll import that into the SeedCode ID field you created in step 3. This step teaches your file that each project has a SeedCode ID: we'll use that in the next step.
5. Now import from your projects table into the Appointments table in SeedCode, lining up the SeedCode ID you created in step 3 (and populated in step 4) with ApptProjectID_kf. The easiest layout to do this on is the Appointment List layout in SeedCode. Make sure you import your project start and end dates into ApptDateStark_k and ApptDateEnd. Finally, import the "one" field you created in step three into ApptProjectOverview_k. Make sure to check "Perform auto-updates..." as On as you begin the import.
That's it.
If you project has more than a start and an end date, you can repeat step 5 once for each date in your project's table. For example, if you have a date in your project's file called "Proof due to client", you'd find all the projects that have such a date entered, and import that found set into appointments, lining up the fields as described in step 5. Then you'd enter a title for these appointments in SeedCode's appointment list layout, titling these "Proof due to client" and using the Replace Field Contents command to set this title into the list of appointments you just imported. Repeat this for each "milestone" date in your projects file, transforming these into "milestone records" in SeedCode.
