Exporting touches

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Bates
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Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:09 am
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Exporting touches

Post by Bates »

Several years ago, we switched from Donor Manager to tntmpd because we got a Mac computer. I found a way to get most of the information exported and transferred, but was never able to export the touches from Donor Manager so that they could be imported to tntmpd. Is there a way to export the touches from Donor Manager? I would need both the main touches and follow-up touches, most likely as separate entries under each partner's name. I would need at least the date and comments for each touch. "Type" of touch and "done" marking are not that important to me. I would really just like to have this history transferred over. The only other way I know of to transfer this information is to manually copy and paste each one (we have 1200 partners). Does anyone have suggestions to make this task easier, even if I can't export the touches? I'm glad to hear that DM can be run on a Mac now, and will be Mac-based in the future. But I've already spent several years using tntmpd and would like to just stay with it.
jmuehleisen
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Re: Exporting touches

Post by jmuehleisen »

Thanks for your question.

The touches table is structured like this:

link (an internal code DM uses to link this file to the partner master record)
touch type (call, email, letter, meeting, etc.)
name (partner name)
type (of touch)
date (of touch)
comment (your comments)
is there follow up to do (yes or no)
follow up type
follow up date
follow up comments
is the follow up done

Now, it is not difficult to get those out of DM (5 or 6) into an Excel worksheet or a CSV file (Comma Separated Value).

But I can see several challenges.

First of all, I don't know if tntMPD has the ability import touch information, and if so, what format it wants. If it can import touch information, then we can get it into about any format you (or tntMPD) might want.

The second problem is probably the bigger one ... DM uses the "link" field to tie things together internally. I'm not sure of how tntMPD handles that.

I'm sure it uses a similar approach (it is common database design), but in all likelihood when you imported your DM data into tntMPD, that field was discarded.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that would be true.

Now, it's possible that we could do some type of custom lookup based on the partner name. It depends again on how tntMPD handles this, and I just don't know the program's internal working well enough to say.

Perhaps Troy or one of the other folks at tntWare can give insight on that.

I'll be glad to help if I can.

One additional comment, or clarification. In your post you mentioned that the Donor Manager will be Mac based in the future.

That's not totally accurate. It will not be Mac based. There may be a cross-platform version of the program that will run on a Mac, and it may or may not be totally Mac native.

But it would be inaccurate to say that DM is going to be Mac based in the future.

It's a small point, but important.

I'm glad you are pleased with tntMPD. It is indeed a very nice program.
John Muehleisen
Mentoring Emerging Christian Leadership in Africa for Excellence / Integrity / Innovation
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