Validation error: Required Field Missiong: Constituent Code

Ricky Zhou

Hi folks,


I was trying to import a group of individual constituents from a CSV file into RE. I follwed the steps on BB's website, making all those field name correct, creating import id, etc. However, it always showed "Validation error: Required Field Missiong: Constituent Code", for all constituents so I cannot import anything at all (I also tried BB's sample file using the same procedures but same error). Any advice for fixing this?


Thanks in advance!!

JoAnn Strommen

My assumption is that you do not have a field in your import for Constituent Code and in your org's RE set up Constituent Code is a required field.  I think you just need to add a constituend code field with data to the records in your import file.  (And date from if desired.)

Ryan Hyde

JoAnn Strommen:

My assumption is that you do not have a field in your import for Constituent Code and in your org's RE set up Constituent Code is a required field.  I think you just need to add a constituend code field with data to the records in your import file.  (And date from if desired.)

Yes, and you probably need to assign the constituent codes in the .csv file itself. You just need to make sure you give them codes that are not already used by someone else. You can do this by making a quick query that looks for anyone with a constituent ID, output the constituent ID, and sort by constituent ID (decending). Whatever the top number is is the highest number that has been used. Make sure your new constituents have IDs that are higher than that number. Should just take a second to populate those numbers in the Constituent ID column in Excel.

JoAnn Strommen

As Ryan pointed out, like your other data, they will need unique import IDs. The code itself I would guess would be one on your table of constituent codes.  (If not, you need to check box for adding new table entries on first import screen.)


For IDs when I'm importing I use this format: date-staff person's initials/importtype-#.  Ex: 111716-jscc-001  This would be for constituent code and with three digits could handle importing 999 records - add digit/s for larger imports. Using this format means I never have to go search for what import IDs have already been used.


Just one option.

Alan French

Ryan Hyde:

Yes, and you probably need to assign the constituent codes in the .csv file itself. You just need to make sure you give them codes that are not already used by someone else. You can do this by making a quick query that looks for anyone with a constituent ID, output the constituent ID, and sort by constituent ID (decending). Whatever the top number is is the highest number that has been used. Make sure your new constituents have IDs that are higher than that number. Should just take a second to populate those numbers in the Constituent ID column in Excel.

I think constituent IDs have been conflated with constituent codes here. Constituent IDs do not have to be specified in the import file - there is a business rule available to automatically generate constituent IDs for new records.

Ryan Hyde

Nope, I'm talking about IDs. I've always had to pre-populate my constituent imports with IDs - I tend to get errors otherwise. However, it's been a while since I tried importing without pre-populating this field, so maybe there was a bug that was fixed at some point along the way that rectifies this, because it certainly does seem that RE should be able to just pull the next available ID number when importing new constituent records.

Alan French

Interesting - I've never come across that issue. Is that with the business rule turned on?

Ryan Hyde

Yep, in all other cases, RE will generate constituent ID numbers for us. 


I have a job to run on Monday that will involve importing some new constituent records from a .csv file, so I'll test it out without pre-populating the IDs and update the thread. 

Ryan Hyde

Ryan Hyde:

Yep, in all other cases, RE will generate constituent ID numbers for us. 


I have a job to run on Monday that will involve importing some new constituent records from a .csv file, so I'll test it out without pre-populating the IDs and update the thread. 

Okay, I figured out why my SOP includes pre-populating constituent ID numbers. The issue is that in the particular routine I run (we're a humane society and I import adopter info on a weekly basis), I get duplicate entries. I obviously don't want duplicate constituents, but I do need the duplicate lines in my .CSV file because each one containes some unique information (animal ID#, species, etc, coming in as attributes). So for my routine, I first look up all recors to see if a match exists in RE, then sort the duplicates, move duplicate lines to a seaprate spreadsheet, populate the IDs in my primary spreadsheet, then do a vlookup to match my duplicate values up. The primary spreadsheet imports the full constituent with the attributes, contact info, etc., and then the secondary spreadsheet is used to pull in any additional adoption attributes.


So if you don't have a system where you have duplicate entries in your spreasheet, then you should just be able to have a Constituent ID column, leave the contents blank, match that column up to Constituent ID in the import module, and RE should assign IDs for you, which is what Alan was saying earlier.

Ricky Zhou

Ricky Zhou:

Hi folks,


I was trying to import a group of individual constituents from a CSV file into RE. I follwed the steps on BB's website, making all those field name correct, creating import id, etc. However, it always showed "Validation error: Required Field Missiong: Constituent Code", for all constituents so I cannot import anything at all (I also tried BB's sample file using the same procedures but same error). Any advice for fixing this?


Thanks in advance!!

Thank you so much JoAnn, Ryan and Alan for your kindness help. I have figured it out my problem here, it was because my RE system has some pre-set rules that some consitituent fields are required when importing (And I cannot change them maybe because I am not the administrator) so I have to make them up according to some rules. Talking about constituent code, in my RE, it is actually a required field under bio2 (Maybe some previous DBA set up this). So it is different from Constituent ID. I believe you can import constituents either using Constituent ID or Import ID.

Susan Chomsky

Alan French:

Ryan Hyde:

Yes, and you probably need to assign the constituent codes in the .csv file itself. You just need to make sure you give them codes that are not already used by someone else. You can do this by making a quick query that looks for anyone with a constituent ID, output the constituent ID, and sort by constituent ID (decending). Whatever the top number is is the highest number that has been used. Make sure your new constituents have IDs that are higher than that number. Should just take a second to populate those numbers in the Constituent ID column in Excel.

I think constituent IDs have been conflated with constituent codes here. Constituent IDs do not have to be specified in the import file - there is a business rule available to automatically generate constituent IDs for new records.

 

Yes. If Constituent Code is a required field for you in RE then you must have the field on the cvs import doc. Ifcells below the field code are blank RE will assign a Constituent Code at import.