Data Merge Where Same Last Name Swaps Other Fields

I'm working on a data merge document of several thousand records (too many to efficiently rename anything by hand). In a record of employees, anyone who has the same last name as someone else gets their departments randomly scrambled among others with the same last name. So if there are two employees with the same last name, their departments are switched. If there are more, they are scrambled.
I have 6 fields: First name, Last name, Box number, Phone extension, Department, and Job title. The only field that I am seeing problems with is Department.
I have no idea why this is happened. It looks like it's all in InDesign. I really don't want to change these all by hand.
The excel spreadsheet is accurate and has all the information arranged correctly.
Any ideas?

RawrArt wrote:
I'm working on a data merge document of several thousand records (too many to efficiently rename anything by hand). In a record of employees, anyone who has the same last name as someone else gets their departments randomly scrambled among others with the same last name. So if there are two employees with the same last name, their departments are switched. If there are more, they are scrambled.
I have 6 fields: First name, Last name, Box number, Phone extension, Department, and Job title. The only field that I am seeing problems with is Department.
I have no idea why this is happened. It looks like it's all in InDesign. I really don't want to change these all by hand.
The excel spreadsheet is accurate and has all the information arranged correctly.
Any ideas?
I can't guess why this happens; perhaps others on the forum know with some certainty.
However, one workaround might be to create a unique identifier for each employee in a new column in the spreadsheet. After sorting the records as you like, use an Excel formula or Fill command to insert a sequential number for each row, in the new column's cell. Include the unique field in the merge in a tiny text frame, with white text color, or non-printing property.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Similar Messages

Can I un-merge contacts so people with the same last name have separate entries?

Since upgrading to iOS7 on my iPhone 4, I find that a lot of contacts were merged into single entries. The merged contacts are people with the same address and may have same last name, but they have other contact info that differs, especially different mobile phone numbers. Is there a way to separate such contacts so I can tell whose mobile phone number is whose? I sync my iphone contacts with the address book on my iMac (OS 10.7.5), where each person remains a separate entry. It is useless for me to see one entry per family on my phone when I cannot tell whose phone number is whose. Any way to fix this?

Select the unified contact you want to unlink
Tap edit
Scroll to the bottom
Tap the red circle
Tap the read unlink button to confirm.

2.0 firmware causes some contacts with same last name to not be displayed

After upgrading to 2.0 it appears that only the first contact for a given last name is shown in contacts. Interestingly, if i search for that last name all of the contacts show up, so they are indeed syncing to the phone but are not able to be viewed in the regular contact list. I tried restoring the phone (imported settings from last sync after restore) and still have the same problem. Anyone else see the same thing?

I'm not aware of anyone called just "John"! Everybody I know has at least a first name and a last name... therefore that is the data I enter into Address Book and iSync works fine for me and all my Sony Ericsson phones.
If you don't provide the required data, you can't really expect iSync to work correctly.
There is a reason for this... its because most phones don't split First and Last Name into two fields like Address Book does. So, if you have a contact named just "John" with no last name, when you sync, how does iSync know whether "John" is a First or Last name?
To get around this iSync adds a '-' into the blank field, so that when syncing back it knows where to put the data.
The solution is extremely simple, just provide Address Book with a first and last name (which AFAIK everyone has).

Adding users to PAB group with same last name as existing

Cannot add user to PAB group when user has same last name as an existing Group member.
Seems to work, see number tick up and green bar flash, but, never really adds.

Joea,
It appears that in the past few days you have not received a response to your
posting. That concerns us, and has triggered this automated reply.
Has your problem been resolved? If not, you might try one of the following options:
- Visit http://support.novell.com and search the knowledgebase and/or check all
the other self support options and support programs available.
- You could also try posting your message again. Make sure it is posted in the
correct newsgroup. (http://forums.novell.com)
Be sure to read the forum FAQ about what to expect in the way of responses:
http://forums.novell.com/faq.php
If this is a reply to a duplicate posting, please ignore and accept our apologies
and rest assured we will issue a stern reprimand to our posting bot.
Good luck!
Your Novell Product Support Forums Team
http://forums.novell.com/

Do all the people in family sharing group have to have same last name?

do all the people in family sharing group have to have same last name?

Hi ant_barry,
Happy New Year! The Family Sharing program does not require members of the family to share the same name. Here is some general information for you:
OS X Yosemite: What is Family Sharing?
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19007
Family Sharing lets up to six members of your family share their iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store purchases, a family calendar, family reminders list, and family photos, all without sharing accounts.
One adult—the family organizer—sets up Family Sharing, invites up to five people to join the family group, and agrees to pay for any iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store purchases those family members initiate while part of the family group. Once set up, family members get immediate access to each other’s music, movies, TV shows, books, and eligible apps. In addition, family members can easily share photos in a shared family album, add events to a family calendar, share their location with other family members, and even help locate another family member’s missing device.
Each family member needs to have an Apple ID he or she uses for iCloud. For a child too young to create his or her own Apple ID, the family organizer can provide parental consent for a child to have his or her own Apple ID and create it on the child’s behalf while adding the child to the family.
To join a family, you must sign in to iCloud with your Apple ID. You will also be asked to confirm the Apple ID you use for the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store. You can be part of only one family group at a time, and you can switch families at most once per year.
Family Sharing is available on iOS devices with iOS 8 or later, Mac computers with OS X Yosemite (v10.10) or later, and Windows computers with iCloud for Windows 4.0 or later.
Join a family
Set up Family Sharing
Last Modified: Nov 19, 2014
Cheers!
- Judy

First and Last Name Swapping

Address book in Leopard does not have the Swap First Name with Last Name in the drop down menu on the desk top tool bar. All my addresses are indexed with last name first, and I want to continue to keep my records this way. Does anyone know where the Swap First and Last Name control is in Leopard Address Book? Thanks

Hi:
The menu items have been renamed somewhat in Leopard. I don't have Leopard in front of me at the moment, but this option should still be available on a per-card basis (or per a selection of cards) within Address Book's Card menu. And the global setting in preferences will affect all of the cards that don't have this setting customized individually.

Outlook task & Contacts first, last name swap

Hi,
Sorry if this has been raised before.
I'm using Windows XP SP2 / Outlook 2003 / Nokia 6275 / Bluetooth. Synching Outlook and phone works successfully except for two small issues:
* Completed Tasks in Outlook do not delete from phone even though Settings > Calendar options states "PC Sync removes recently completed To-do items from mobile phone".
* My Outlook contacts are all stored "last name, first name" and sync correctly to phone. However once every month or so some Outlook records (not all) get corrupted and name field is changed to "first name last name"
Any ideas?

I am not sure what you mean. If you mean Last name/first name to First name/Last name Go into contacts>options>Settings>Name display and set according to your needs. There are three options there.

Table where the last name and the first anme are stored

Hi ALL,
I would like to know the table in which the last name and the first name of the employee gets stored?

Hi,
You can use the table PA0002 for first and last name of the employee.
Please refer the below fields in table PA0002
First name- PA0002<VORNA>
Last Name-PA0002<NACHN>
Second Name-PA0002<NACH2>
Regards
Raviiiiiiiiiii

Data Merge FYI - can't name a field "table"

I spent an hour today trying to figure out why my wedding place card data merge wouldn't work. I wasn't even getting an error message so it was hard to identify the problem. It turns out that you can't have a field named "table". Just thought I'd get the word out there as there seems to be no mention of it in InDesign Help.

Yeah, I resaved the source both ways, and even copied/pasted it into a brand new TextEdit file. Maybe the OS has something to do with it; I'm running Mac OS X 10.5.8. Just now, I opened a new TextEdit file and typed up a new one-field, one-record source file, and sure enough, it didn't work. But when I deleted the "e" in "table" and resaved it, it worked just fine.

Sorting by Last Name with One Field

In other words, how would I sort by last name when it's a single field that looks like FirstName_LastName?
Ex:
Alex S
Derek A
Bob Z
to
Derek A
Alex S
Bob Z
I would suppose there is a way to make it read only the data after the space and sort it that way somehow?
I have other problems but this is the biggest one I have at the moment.

Dgn wrote:
The thing is the I don't specifically remember hearing this in class and it doesn't appear in my book unless it goes by some other name.
I'm dealing with a multi class program if that has any relevance.
And I'm supposed to sort the names into a alphabetical last name format.Are you supposed to use your own sorting alogrithm or are you supposed to use Java's built in sorting algorithms and API?

Extract date/time stamp and modifier name from memo field

I need to extract all date/time stamps and modifier name strings from the Work Log memo field - or conversely, filter out all of the comments after the date/time modifier strings. I have the string extract but it only extracts the first one. I need to loop until all are found - how can I do this? The memo field will look something like this:
3/5/2009 3:32:05 PM John Doe
Comments - string can be any length
3/4/2009 12:35:43 PM John Doe
Comments - string can be any length
3/4/2009 12:28:17 PM Jane Dough
Comments - string can be any length and include date format 2009-06-04 14:20 CST.
3/4/2009 12:27:47 PM Mary HadaliddleLam
Comments - string can be any length
3/4/2009 12:26:55 PM Lamseedivy
Comments - string can be any length
3/4/2009 12:15:22 PM Mareseedoes
Comments - string can be any length.

Here is a formula that will strip all 'comment' and blank lines and puts the datetime stamp and user names into an array. You have to manipulate the elements of the array to further separate the datetime stamp and user name if required.
// Declare two indices
numbervar i := 1;
numbervar j := 1;
// Split each row of the memo field into an array
// if chr(10) does not work then try with chrw(13) or chr(13)
stringvar array x := split({Sheet1_.Comments},chr(10));
// Declare a holding array
stringvar array y;
// Declare the size of the new array to be equal to the elements in array 1
redim y[ubound(x)];
// Copy only if the first word of each element of array 1 is neither "comments" nor a blank line
for i := 1 to ubound(x) do
if split(x<i>) = 'comments' or x<i> = '' then
else
(y[j] := x<i>;
j := j + 1;
// Compress the new array to eliminate the last blank element
redim preserve y[j-1];
// Joining the elements of the new array and the number of elements for display
join(y,chrw(13)) & chrw(13) & ubound(y);
With your example, this formula will return:
3/5/2009 3:32:05 PM John Doe
3/4/2009 12:35:43 PM John Doe
3/4/2009 12:28:17 PM Jane Dough
3/4/2009 12:27:47 PM Mary HadaliddleLam
3/4/2009 12:26:55 PM Lamseedivy
3/4/2009 12:15:22 PM Mareseedoes
6.00
Make sure the "can grow" option is checked to display the results and also check for case sensitivity of "comments".
Edited by: Sanjay Kodidine on Jun 30, 2009 10:13 AM

How can I get iOS "Contacts" to sort search results on a name-first, other-fields-next basis?

Example: I type "jo sm" into the search bar in Contacts on iOS 7, expecting John Smith and Josephine Smolens to appear at the top of the list, as they are the only ones of my contacts whose name matches the pattern "jo* sm*". Instead, they are perhaps numbers 15 and 34 on the list, as other peoples' Notes fields also contain the pattern "jo* sm*".
Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

This does not answer my question. I apologize for my lack of clarity when I tried to explain the problem.
To clarify: I'm not using wild card characters; I was just trying to explain the behavior I get and how it's different from what I want. Let me try again a slightly different way:
When I type "jo sm" into the Search bar in iOS 7 Contacts, I want the first results to be the people whose First Name starts with (or even just contains) "jo" and whose Last Name starts with (or contains) "sm".
Instead, I get all contacts whose Notes contain the letters "jo" and "sm" anywhere at all (which is many many people), and they are given to me in an order that seems random. Therefore, when I type "jo sm", I don't see the contact I'm looking for because he/she is routinely three pages down the list.
Thanks in advance!

BDC steps differ when inputing same record with different other field value

CODEDATE--
ETC...(there is of course other field)
11----01.10.2007   (do process A C D)
12----01.10.2007   (do process A C D)
12----01.11.2007   (Having same code field so do process A B C D)
13----01.11.2007   (do process A C D)
14----01.10.2007   (do process A C D)
15----01.11.2007   (do process A C D)
15----01.12.2007   (Having same code field so do process A B C D)
16----01.10.2007   (do process A C D)
hi i am doing a BDC batch my input table a bit like above.
first record will do process A C D
second record will do process A C D
thirt record will do process A B C D
second record will do process A C D
Any hint of how i can do that plzzzz . Urgent helppp needed

as per understanding,
if code = 11 and date = 01.10.2007 then u need process A C and D right.
define 4 subrountine with A B C D logics.
define one more subroutine with SR1 and SR2.
inside SR1 call 3 subroutines A C D
and SR2 call A B C D.
if code = 11 and date = 01.10.2007 then
call subroutine SR1,
if if code = 12 and date = 01.11.2007 then call Subroutine SR2.
if u have any issue, let me know the detailed requirement.

Query to get the records with same last name

I need to write a single sql query to get all records with duplicate last_name's. For example, if tab1 has 4 records:
10     Amit     Kumar
20     Kishore          Kumar
30     Sachin     Gupta
40     Peter     Gabriel
then the query should return
10     Amit     Kumar
20     Kishore     Kumar
id, name,L_name being the 3 columns in table
Apprecite you help.
Thank you
Mary

SQL> create table mytable (id,name,l_name)
2 as
3 select 10, 'Amit', 'Kumar' from dual union all
4 select 20, 'Kishore', 'Kumar' from dual union all
5 select 30, 'Sachin', 'Gupta' from dual union all
6 select 40, 'Peter', 'Gabriel' from dual
7 /
Table created.
SQL> select id
2       , name
3       , l_name
4    from ( select t.*
5                , count(*) over (partition by l_name) cnt
6             from mytable t
7         )
8   where cnt > 1
9 /
                                    ID NAME    L_NAME
                                    10 Amit    Kumar
                                    20 Kishore Kumar
2 rows selected.Regards,
Rob.

Scripting a file name change as a data merge element.

My goal of the work being done with InDesign is to utilize the Data Merge functionality of InDesign and the, already available, ability to create a new document per record in your data source where the docuement name is changed based on data contained in the data source.
A very simple example of this would be the following:
EXAMPLE
======================
Given the following data source in excel:
First_Name
Last_Name
ResultingFileName
George
Smith
c:\A45.pdf
Mary
Lopez
c:\C99.pdf
Steve
Barns
c:\tmp\XM96TR.pdf
Along with a simple two text box InDesign documents, I would perform a standard data merge with First_Name linked to one text box and Last_Name linked to another. By setting the “Record Limits Per Document” to 1, I would end up with three different documents. By default, the documents would be named Untiltled-1, Untiltled-2 and Untitled-3.
Untitled-1 would contain George and Smith. Untitled-2 would contain Mary and Lopez and Untitled-3 would contain Steve and Barns.
At this point in time, I would run the new created script, which would do the following:
            Rename Untitled-1 to A45 and/or save Untitled-1 as C:\A45.pdf
            Rename Untitled-2 to C99 and/or save Untitled-2 as C:\C99.pdf
            Rename Untitled-3 to XM96TR and/or save Untitled-3 as c:\tmp\XM96TR.pdf
I am open to modifying the manner in which the data merge source is created. For example, separating the path and the file name into separate columns. In addition, I am flexible in putting preset information and/or file save types into the data merge document.
Please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected]
Thanks in advance for the help.
Matt

Hi Matt,
I think it’s better to use an XML-based approach for your task.
I’ve never scripted Data Merge process, but I don’t see a straightforward way of doing it. May be you can create the 3rd textbox on pasteboard or a non-printing layer, which will contain the file path from ‘ResultingFileName’ field, and the contents from which can be used for naming & saving the current file and exporting it to pdf-file. But this approach is so clumsy.
Instead, you’d better to keep your data in excel file, or even better Access or some other database program.
Export the data from it in XML-format.
Then import it to an InDesign file and process it by script. XML support is very powerful in InDesign: you can process your data by xml-rules. I once made a script for a newspaper, which processed data for classified ads. The script applied all formatting, changed colors for different headings and placed images.
Kasyan

Data Merge Where Same Last Name Swaps Other Fields

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for