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Importing Party Relationships

Workbooks Support Posted: 2014-09-19 13:11

You can import Party Relationships in one of two ways in to Workbooks. Method one, is to use the import mode called "Party Relationships". Method two is to import People or Organisations and then use the extend functionality to create a relationship between two records.

Method 1: Using Party Relationships Import Mode

Step 1: Prepare your data

Below is an example set of data that can be used to create a relationship between an Organisation and a Person record. You'll notice that I've specified the Object References of both the Organisation and Person that I want to create a relationship between. I've also specified the names of both sides of the relationship.

Step 2: Import Mappings

Using the Import wizard, choose a "Party Relationship" import and select your data file. On Stage 3 of the import wizard, you are required to set up your field mappings as required. If you are unsure how to do this, see here.

There are three required fields to create a relationship which should have been included in your data file from Step 1:

  • From Person or Organisation Name
  • To Person or Organisation Name
  • Relationship Type

The first two can be mapped as normal to the appropriate columns. Relationship type is slightly different. You can map to a data file column or use a fixed value if you wish to create multiple relationships of the same type:

Click "Save & Close" when you are finished.

Click "Next" and then "Run" to start the import. Once finished, you should see the following results.

From an Organisation record:

From a Person record:

Method 2: Using People/Organisations Import Mode

You can create Relationships between People and Organisations by using the extend functionality within the Import tool.

Step 1: Prepare data

For this method, you don't need to include any additional columns within your source file about the relationship you want to create. This is all handled later on within the Import Wizard. This type of Import can be done with a standard People file as shown below:

Step 2: Import Mappings and Extend

Using the Import wizard, choose a "People" import and select your data file. On Stage 3 of the import wizard, you are required to set up your field mappings. If you are unsure how to do this, see here. Click "Extend" and choose one of the relationships from the list. By default you can choose the following:

  • Customer
  • Supplier
  • Partner
  • Prospective Customer
  • Employer
  • Ex-Employer

If you've added custom relationships, they will also appear in this list.

You can then map to any custom fields that may exist on the Relationship itself but these are optional. If you have access to more than one Own Organisation, then you must specify which Own Organisation the relationship is between. To do this, click the "Own Organisation" from the list:

At this point, you can change the mapping type to be "Fixed Value" and enter in the name of your Own Organisation. Alternatively, you can map to a column in your Source file. Click "Save & Close" when you are happy.

Step 3: Setting the Import Mode

On Stage 4 you will need to set the import mode and choose which field should be used to uniquely identify each record. In this example, I have used a small data set and I know that there are no duplicate names so have simply checked the "Person name" option. You may wish to use something like email address if you are importing new records or an object reference if you are updating existing records.

Set the import mode to "Only create new records". Click "Next" when you are done to start the import.

From the Person record:

From the Own Organisation record on the people tab you'll be able to see all of the relationships that we just created plus any existing:

Once the import is finished, remember to re-visit the Import wizard, check any changed records and then click "Approve" if you are happy with the changes or "Reject" if you are not. This will help to mitigate any future data issues.