I am experiencing quite the same behaviour.

I've found that this issue was addressed earlier:

Ticket 313
http://www.centriccrm.com/ProjectManagementTickets.do?command=Details&pid=36&id=609&return=details

Ticket 637

both still open although they are for older versions.
http://www.centriccrm.com/ProjectManagementTickets.do?command=Details&pid=48&id=1256&return=details

Can you give some more info about this issue?

vladimir

I've found the "solution".

I've glanced upon the code (branch-4.0) and found out that Last name is indeed required to get a proper import to Accounts. At least with current config.

Code relevant in:

- AccountsContactsImport.java
- ContactImportValidator

but maybe most important:

cfs-import-properties.xml

which on line 67 has:

<property aliases="last name,lastname,last_name" displayName="Last Name" required="true" substitute="nameFull">nameLast</property>

What I did is that I've just replaced substitute 'nameFull' with 'company' and it worked like a charm.

However, I do not like this 'solution' and I do not think developers had in mind the current behaviour.

Also, as I can see from the above mentioned xml file, class
class="org.aspcfs.modules.contacts.base.Contact" is used for mapping the Accounts into the database which tells me that actually Contacts import module might have been reused (no problem with that) but not quite customized for Accounts module (some account fields are missing).

Can somebody give some more insight on this feature, plans in future versions if all ?

Thank you.

vladimir
Can somebody

That required="true" is probably the restriction and its substitute is nameFull.

those last 2 lines in my previous post are accidentaly left there..disregard them..

We are in the course of testing and choosing a new CRM system in my company, and as I was pressed for time (and still am) I ended up importing using last name anyway. Essentially that meant importing contacts and accounts at the same time, which sadly caused all information, except for account number and account name, to end up in contact records.

I tried importing contacts first, then accounts, but I ended up with duplicate records which is not what I wanted.

I also downloaded the svn version of Centric but that had even more weird stuff happening during imports of accounts (database errors).

If we choose centric, I will definitely try the above '"fix" though!

Thanks,

jh

Not directly connected to the topic, but it seems that CentricCRM lacks the feature of deleting the multiple accounts (and maybe for all other modules multiple deletion is N/A).

I could certainly use that option because in the process of testing the import function I need to delete accounts and contacts, import them again, delete etc. Deleting one by one is ... not really convenient.

I am using the small set of records, but still.

Is there Delete All option that I am not aware of (4.0 branch)

v.

It seems that "fix" that I've proposed "works" but not as intended.

True, accounts records are created, but only 'Organization name' is filled in for each account.

If there is something I am doing wrong could you please point me to the right direction. This is one of the critical features which will have impact on our customers preference of the CRM system.

v.

That's exactly what happened to me when I imported the accounts and filling out the last name field. Tt doesn't seem like there is a way to import other account information such as address, phone numbers, etc. I guess you could import them as leads, and then use "work as account", but that's a big job if you have thousands of records.

There's probably a fix for it in future relases though, since it's already entered in the bugtracker..

jh

June,

Exactly right. It was working as designed, but not as we SHOULD have designed it. We're developing a modification to allow importing Accounts without Contacts in the near future.

-Tom

I know this is not a popular questions, and I am asking with no obligations.

Is this on your priority list and if you plan to release it with version 4.1 can you say will it be in days, weeks or months?

I am not making this question out of curioisity but because we need to make certain decisions.

Thank you.

Just for clarification...

Leads allows records to be imported as Contacts or Companies -- and those records can be converted into a Contact or Account.

The Accounts module, however, generates a warning if you do not select a last name, thus only contacts are imported (and their account information if they have any).

We'll improve the Accounts import module to create Accounts regardless of whether the contact information is available. This will be assigned and if possible will appear in 4.1.