Data Conversion

Importing Your Data - Data Preparation

Your data must be formatted properly before importing it into the Xebra system.  The person who formats the data  should be familiar with manipulating data using spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel or a database  program like Microsoft Access.  After formatting the information, the files need to be saved as text files.

The program you use to export the files will give you prompts to indicate how you would like the file saved.  Use  the following guidelines to import your data correctly into Xebra:

– ASCII text delimited files.

– Delimiter is a comma or tab.    

– Text qualifiers are double quotes.  Text qualifiers should surround all STRING or STRINGUPPER   fields.  (See Data Type Definitions)  When double quotes occur within a string field, they must be doubled.  

– The end of a record is determined by a carriage return/line feed combination.    

– The first row of the text file contains the field names of the fields included in the text file.  The field names  should be surrounded by the Text qualifiers (Double quotes) and separated by commas or tabs just like the  data rows.  

– The receiving program will treat all items as insertions.  If a record exists on the receiving system, the  record received on the conversion will be ignored.

CAUTION: Microsoft Excel is a very popular program for manipulating text data.  Unfortunately, it often tries to do too much for you and formats data in unexpected ways.  Numeric text data with dashes or colons  will often be converted to dates or times. If you use numeric customer, supplier, or item codes, it  will strip off leading zeros. You should always view your finished data file in Notepad or Word to check for formatting problems.
 
              ***Microsoft Access is a much better tool for this kind of work.***

NOTE: When saving from an Excel spreadsheet as a CSV (Comma Delimited) file, text qualifiers (double quotes) can be omitted, as Excel will supply these as necessary in the saved file.  With Excel it is important, though, to format all text columns as text if they will contain numbers with leading zeroes, such as an item number 000324.

Each file includes fields, such as: Name, Address or Customer Code.  These fields must be of the correct data type,  which is a set of data with values having predefined characteristics.  The data types used by XETEX Xebra are  listed below:

STRINGUPPER - This data type is most often used in key fields.  The characters may be uppercase alpha or  numeric.  Embedded spaces, special characters and punctuation should not be used in key fields.

STRING - String fields may contain any printable ASCII character.

XNUMBER - The XNUMBER is a XETEX proprietary data type that stores a number, and the number of decimal  places.  When sending numeric information to a field designated as an XNUMBER, include the decimal point (If  required) followed by the fractional portion of the number.  Do not include unnecessary decimal places.  Percents  should always be expressed as a percent, not the fractional multiplier.  For example, 5% should be sent as 5 or 5.0, not .05.  Do  not include commas in any number field.  Negative numbers should be preceded by a minus sign.

INTEGER - A whole number with no decimal point. Negative numbers should be preceded by a minus sign.

DATE_FIELD - All dates are to be recorded as MM/DD/YY or MM/DD/YYYY, including customers who will be using the European  date formats on their system. .  Additionally, the date may be followed by a time stamp and may be in quotes.  The Xebra will verify that dates are valid as part of its error checking process.

BOOL - you may use a character field and enter a “1” for True or  “0” for False. However, it is best to leave this blank to allow the system to default the value appropriate to other values supplied.  Default value specifications are underlined in the notes column for individual fields.   If the default value is not determined to be true, the value will default to false.  Again, unless there is a specific need to set a value to “1”, it is best to leave the field blank.

Required Fields and Defaults

Required fields and default values are set according to requirements and defaults when entering new records manually into Xebra.  Required fields are in bold.  If a field value is defaulted, the source of the default value is defined and underlined in the notes column in the following sections.   If values are supplied for these fields in the import data, the default values will not overwrite them.