Pro and Gold Help

You can set up your Access database in a similar fashion to the one included in the software in the folder ShopFactory/Sample Databases. There is no need to use the same field names — the Import Wizard will prompt you for the appropriate field names later.

You can set up your Excel database in a similar fashion to the one included in the software in the folder ShopFactory/Sample Databases. There is no need to use the same field names — the Import Wizard will prompt you for the appropriate field names later. You should ensure that you note which table you have used within the spreadsheet.

Please read the note below about particulars how the rows need to be ordered.

Please note that due to the ODBC layer Import Wizard uses to access the data you must ensure that the date you import is correctly defined in the first 8 rows of the file you import.

ODBC interprets automatically the data type based on the first eight rows of your file.

If you have "1", "a", "3" in the same column in row 1, 2 and 3 respectively, then Import Wizard will see it as text, because of the a.

If you had "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8" and then had an "a" in row 9, then row 9 will not be imported correctly as ODBC will have determined that the column contains numbers, and a is not a number.

The a will then be imported as either a 0 or as en empty field, depending on what field in ShopFactory is is being imported into.

See the following two examples to highlight the problem:

Sample 1	How Import Wizard sees it		Sample 2	How Import Wizard sees it
1	1		1	1
2	2		2	2
3	3		3	3
A	A		4	4
4	4		5	5
5	5		6	6
6	6		7	7
7	7		8	8
8	8		A	0

 

The Import Wizard can import data from any text file using a comma, tab, or any other delimiter.

A delimiter is simply a symbol used to separate adjoining fields within the same row. The choice of the delimiter can be set with the set up of the text file selection.

An example of a comma delimited (.csv) text file, and a tab delimited (.txt) text file are included in the folder called ShopFactory/Sample Databases.

Please read the note below about particulars how the rows need to be ordered.

To import a MYOB database perform the following steps:

1. In MYOB open the database which is to be imported into ShopFactory.
2. Select "File Menu", then "Export Data", then "Items".
3. At the "Export File" dialog box specify "Export Items Format" with "Comma-separated", and change the "First Record is:" radio button to "Header Record", then click "Continue".
4. At the "Export Data" dialog box click the "Match All" button then click the "Export" button.
5. At the "Save As" dialog box save the file name in the "ShopFactory" installation directory (e.g.: c:/Program Files/ShopFactory).

To import a QuickBooks database perform the following steps:

1. In QuickBooks open the database which is to be imported into ShopFactory.
2. Select the "Reports" menu, then "List Reports", then "Item", then "Item Listing".
3. At the "Item Listing" page, click the "Head/Footer" button which will display the "Format Header/Footer" dialog box.
4. De-select ALL the check boxes, and click "OK" which will return to the "Item Listing" page, click the "Print" button to display the "Print Reports" dialog.
5. In the first section, click the "File" radio button to select it, select "Tab delimited file" from the drop-down list, then click the "Print" button.
6. Specify file name to save the database as (it will be saved as a '.txt' text format file, this is correct), make sure the destination is in "ShopFactory" installation directory (eg: c:/Program Files/ShopFactory)

The "Edit DSN" section is an advanced function and will only be visible if you tick the "advanced" button on the first page. Select a DSN Type from the DSN drop down list (either User DSN, System DSN or File DSN), specify the respective DSN on the edit field next to the drop down list. The DSN (Data Source Name) files are specified with the ODBC Administrator program located in the "Control Panel" popup. Import Wizard supports either User-DSN , System-DSN or File-DSNs. For more information on importing MS SQL Server 7 Databases contact your 'Database Administrator'.

You need to specify the full path name of a paradox database, e.g. "c:\database\paradox\parardox-db1.db". There is no need to use the same field names - the Import Wizard will prompt you for the appropriate field names later. You should ensure that there is a file on the same folder as the specified db file.

To import a DBase database into ShopFactory Borland's BDE (Borland Database Engine) needs to be installed. Without BDE the Import Wizard may fail. A copy of BDE can be downloaded from http://www.borland.com.