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Multiple Data files from customer and combining into one


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Anyone get in like 10 or more data files for a single job that has no "version," or "tier" column in each data file but the data file is labeled to what "level" of play they should get?

 

Basically, you have to open each data file, put in the column header and their level of play throughout each record in that database. You can either combine all 10 or so data files together in Excel or during your automated scripting in your postal software. Depends on if you want to just have one data file importing into your postal software or all 10.

 

This gets pretty tedious.:mad:

 

Now, does anyone know how to automate this step? I'd like to be able to take the names of the data file, have a column header generate, insert their level of play and merge into one data file. Some sort of .bat file to create or scripting perhaps out of excel?

 

Anyone had this done for them or time/$ it would take?

 

Thanks!

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Sounds like a job for ExternalDataFileEx to me. You should be able to access all the data files directly in FusionPro, without having to do any pre-merging in Excel. The Frodo Travel tutorial shows an example of accessing secondary data files, as does this thread:

http://forums.printable.com/showthread.php?t=392

 

I don't know the details of the job (such as the data file names or the field names) to be able to make specific suggestions, but I would think you could simply select which data file to open based on the "level", which presumably comes from the main input data file for the job. Something like this:

var levelDataFile = new ExternalDataFileEx(Field("Level") + ".txt", "\t");

Then you can access the ExternalDataFileEx object with its GetFieldValue function to extract the data you need, as in the other examples.

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var levelDataFile = new ExternalDataFileEx(Field("Level") + ".txt", "\t");

Then you can access the ExternalDataFileEx object with its GetFieldValue function to extract the data you need, as in the other examples.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Dan.

 

The problem with this campaign is the data files have to get merged into one file to import into the Postal Software program to run it and then kick-out one data file.

 

2 screen shots attached. One shows the many data files that customer submits of all it's Tier levels. The other shows a snippet of what the data looks like. I deleted the Account # and their names. But as you can see, there is no column that has the actual tier level in the data file. So I have to open all the data files up, place in a column called version, input the level based on what the data file is called. We could potentially have different artwork for each Tier level also.

 

Not sure if mail houses have a way to deal with this easily(automating/scripting with) or if this is just the way it is..:o

data.jpg.4a46b23fdf2951c192d6f4f72ca8d3cc.jpg

data-records.jpg.a04455801d449a162baae0f213d16659.jpg

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The problem with this campaign is the data files have to get merged into one file to import into the Postal Software program to run it and then kick-out one data file.

Well, that's not really an issue related to the FusionPro composition itself, so I'm not sure it's exactly on-topic for the FP Desktop sub-forum. It might be more appropriate for the Reviews, Rants, and General Musings sub-forum, like your post from last year about Postal One Reports. (Actually, I just went ahead and moved this thread.)

 

That said, I think you could do something like this in Excel with a VBA macro, and it's fine if someone here on the forum wants to help with that. But there's a point at which you probably want to think about a solution with a real database instead of dealing with text files and Excel.

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