Overview

This article describes the Pre-Import Check process that is mandatory for importing Contribution or Voter (or Donor or Contact – hereafter referred to collectively as Voter) data from a CSV file into Trail Blazer.

When the Pre-Import Check process completes, it gives you a window showing the number of errors and warnings.  Two examples of this window follow.

Good going!

You’ve got some work to do before importing the data

Then it asks where you want the Errors and Warnings report saved.  That report contains the details of errors and items to be warned about. Use that report to work through the issues.

You are not allowed to import a file that contains errors that the Pre-Import Check process finds.

Why this Process?

The new Pre-Import Check process on the Voter data from CSV originates from the many experiences that Trail Blazer Customers have had performing imports. 

The staff at Trail Blazer decided to create a process that users would run before importing their data.  This process would look at the file that the user wants to import and see if any of the data in there is problematic.  A report comes out of this process to direct the user what items need to be changed in their data before they can import the file.

Required?

Yes, before doing a voter import of a CSV file.  The file must be free of Errors to import it.

Finalized List of Errors and Warnings?

The list of Errors and Warnings likely are not the final list.  As with Trail Blazer itself, this process will likely grow to do more checks, making more errors and warnings possible.  This article should be updated as additional checks are inserted.

Categories and Sub-Categories of Checks

There are two categories of checks:  Column Header and Data. 

The Column Header category focuses on the column titles in your import file and the mapped to Trail Blazer columns.  These are shown to you after you click the “Match Columns” of the window below ­­and it populates with the names of columns from your file and what Trail Blazer detects as mapped-to columns.  At that time, you also manually select what Trail Blazer Columns that your data maps to. 

Quick Look at a Sample Error and Warnings Report

Let’s take a look at part of a sample error and warnings report.  Below is a picture of a sample errors and warnings report.