Export Data

Address Book contact data can be exported to a .csv file.  This allows you to export all or some contacts to an external spreadsheet, database, etc.

To export Address Book data:

  1. Select Export Data from the Address Book administration menu.
  2. Click GO to export the entire Address Book or indicate logical selection criteria for a portion of the Address Book.
  3. Enter a file name and browse for the directory to save the export file.
  4. Click Save.  The file is in comma-separated-variable (CSV) format, suitable for editing or loading into another database.  Export criteria can be saved for future exports.

Notes about Date and Date/Time Fields

If you plan to export BMC FootPrints Service Core data to a .CSV file for manipulation in Excel for eventual re-importing in BMC FootPrints Service Core (i.e., open the .CSV file in Excel for manipulation, re-save it to a .CSV file, and then load it back into BMC FootPrints Service Core) you must perform certain steps if your data contains Date or Date/Time fields:

  1. After you open the .CSV file in Excel, you it is displayed suitably for your locale. For example, in the United States, the date 2003-02-14 in the import file is displayed as 2/14/03.
  2. You must change the format of that column by selecting Format | Cells | Custom. Select one of the existing formats and then input into the Type box YYYY-MM-DD for a date field and YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS for a Date/Time field.
  3. Make any additional changes desired and then save it as a .CSV file for re-importing into FootPrints Service Core.

ISO Date Problems

If there is a date field in the Address book, export dates in the ISO format becomes a problem. There are two workarounds to this problem:

The first workaround is:

  1. Select Administration | System | Date Format.
  2. Change the format for the entire system to the ISO format. This requires System Administration privileges.
  3. Export the data again.
  4. Open the file with WordPad. The date data should now be in ISO Format. If you view the exported file in Excel, you may find a different format than if you open it with WordPad. If you save the file in Excel, it may change the date format without being told to do so.
  5. Select Administration | System | Date Format and return the format to what it was before you changed it.

The second workaround is:

  1. Open the exported data in Excel.
  2. Highlight the entire column of any date field.
  3. Right-click in the highlighted column and chose "format cells".
  4. Select Category | Highlight "Custom"
  5. Under "Type", enter yyyy-mm-dd and then click OK. The date format should change for the entire column.
  6. Save the file.

 

 

 

 

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