If you’re importing into an existing category, see below.

Confirming the field names and types

When you create a new category, you will be asked to confirm the names and types of the Fields that will make up the category. You also need to give the new category itself a name. The category name should reflect the type of data; for example, “Person” or “Event” or “Invoice”.

If you imported data which had labels, Dabble DB will try to use these for the field names. In this case, there will be a message saying “First row is hidden since it is being used as field names.” This means that the first row won’t be imported as data. Click Don’t use as field names if you think Dabble made a mistake and your first row is actually data you want to import.

If your imported data did not contain any labels, or if Dabble wasn’t able to guess them, then you will need to type labels (names) for each column/field.

Below the names, the first few rows of your data (if any) are shown for context. The last row tells you what type of data Dabble DB thinks the column contains. If you think it is incorrect, you can change the type by using the drop-down menu. Read more about the types of fields in Dabble DB.

If you want Dabble DB not to import one of the columns at all, use the drop-down menu and select Do not import.

Importing data into an existing category

If you import data into an existing category, then the options presented in step 2 are slightly different. Dabble DB will automatically try to match the imported columns to fields that exist in your category. You can confirm or change this, or tell Dabble to import the columns as new fields, in which case you need to specify the name.

Finally, you can specify whether you want to update existing entries with the imported data:

• Create a new entry for each row — if you select this option, all imported data will be converted to new entries. Existing entries in the category will be untouched.

• Update existing entries when key data matches — select this option if you wish to update your existing data with the imported data. You must choose a key — a field that will be compared. When data in the key field of an imported entry matches an existing entry, the existing entry’s data will be updated. If there is no matching existing entry, then a new entry will be created instead.
  • Ignore blank values (keep existing data) — if this is checked, any blank columns in the imported data will be ignored and existing data will be maintained. If this is not checked, then blank columns will cause existing data to be erased.