The data import facility also permits the Issues you are going to import to be associated with their corresponding Address Book contacts as soon as they are imported. For example, if Bob Jones is in the Address Book, his imported Issues can be pre-filled with his contact information from the Address Book.
The linking facility requires that the Address Book be populated prior to the Issue data being loaded. Address Book data can be imported by the Workspace Administrator either on the Workspace Administration page under Address Book Administration | Load External Data, or under “Administration” in the Address Book itself. Complete instructions can be found in the section on Address Book.
The linking is done via a link or shadow field in data load file whose field name is specified on the initial Load External Data into a Workspace. This shadow field represents a field in the Address Book. For example, the Address Book might contain an Email address field, which could be specified as the link field. Specifically, the Primary Key, specified on the Address Book Administration Field Maintenance page, should probably be included as the Shadowed Link field. Although it is not the only choice one can make, it is the best choice.
The link field data must be included in the import file for each Issue. If the link field is Email address and the contact associated with an Issue is Bob Jones (whose email address in the Address Book is [email protected]), an extra link field would be included in an Issue record in the import file, containing [email protected].
Here is an example of one line of an import file with an Address Book link field Email address included. This example assumes the Issue Schema includes only Title, Description, Priority, Status, and Assignee fields. The email address is represented by [email protected] in the link field:
System Down,Must reboot the server on Monday,3,Open,jsmith,[email protected]
The order of the fields in the import file is specified via the Field Picker.
The linked field should be unique. We recommend using the unique key for that Address Book. Email address and Social Security number would be good choices, while Last Name would not be a good choice. If the Address Book contains any duplicate contacts based on the link field, a warning message is presented and you are given choices on how to proceed.
The data in the link field must correspond to a contact in the Address Book or else an error message is presented and the load step does not proceed. This means that if a link field contains [email protected], there must be a contact in the Address Book whose email address is [email protected].
After the import is complete, the Issues are in the workspace. The contact information for each Issue will have been automatically filled in (based on the data in the Address Book).