Importing Connections

This article will discuss importing connections between object.

You can use an import to create connections to other records. When you import records into an existing object, you can choose which field from that object to match the column in your CSV to. Likewise, you can can also match a column in your CSV to a field in a connecting object. Knack will then use that match to find a record to connect to.

These connection fields are in the format of ObjectName > FieldName and will be at the bottom of the list of current fields:

In the example above, we’re importing a CSV of employees. We match a column for company names is to a connected Company object's Company name field. The import will use the value of that column to search for any companies that have the same name. If it finds one, it will connect the employee record - created by the row in the CSV - to that company.

Importing to a Many-to-Many Connection Field

You can also import to a many-many connection field. Make sure the CSV is formatted such that the multiple records to be stored in the connection field are:

1. Comma-separated or row separated,
2. WITHOUT a space before or after each comma, and
3. Contained within a single cell

It will look like this:

First child,second child,third child

Or this:

First child
Second child
Third child

Note: If you are formatting your csv in Excel, you do not need to add the quotation marks, Excel will do this automatically. You can verify the format is correct by opening your csv in a text editor application.

Note: If you're importing and setting connection values to multi-part fields, such as Name & Address fields, you'll get inconsistent results or the values won't be set at all. We are working on this, but in the meantime suggest you use other unique fields such as email address or an ID field as your display field in the connected object and map to that value in your import.