How to transfer data from a Lotus Approach database to Access

[DKF9]

Hi. I need some help in transferring data from a Lotus Approach database into Access.

I have a field in Approach that is like a memo field in Access. There are many lines of data for each row. (each line was most likely entered followed by hitting the enter key.) This is a history of employee actions - hired, promoted, transferred, etc. that I need to keep attached in the new database.

When I attempted an export into a Text - delimited file - the line exported, but not all to the correct single individual. Each line of data was divided to the next individuals on the list - so the number of lines in the first "memo" field filled into that same number of employees. Hope fully this makes sense.

As an example the field may read like this:

1/1/06 Hired
1/1/07 Promoted
1/1/08 Transferred to Operations
1/1/09 Separated - took another job

This set of data would transfer - but would be attached - 1 line each to the first 4 names in the list. Instead of all info attached to the individual it really belongs to.

How do I transfer this field correctly? I would appreciate instructions that are in plain english (if at all possible) or step by step - I am not an IT person - and am learning everything as I go.

Thanks for your time and help!

[Jim Doherty]

Hi. I need some help in transferring data from a Lotus Approach database into Access.

I have a field in Approach that is like a memo field in Access. There are many lines of data for each row. (each line was most likely entered followed by hitting the enter key.) This is a history of employee actions - hired, promoted, transferred, etc. that I need to keep attached in the new database.

When I attempted an export into a Text - delimited file - the line exported, but not all to the correct single individual. Each line of data was divided to the next individuals on the list - so the number of lines in the first "memo" field filled into that same number of employees. Hope fully this makes sense.

As an example the field may read like this:

1/1/06 Hired
1/1/07 Promoted
1/1/08 Transferred to Operations
1/1/09 Separated - took another job

This set of data would transfer - but would be attached - 1 line each to the first 4 names in the list. Instead of all info attached to the individual it really belongs to.

How do I transfer this field correctly? I would appreciate instructions that are in plain english (if at all possible) or step by step - I am not an IT person - and am learning everything as I go.

Thanks for your time and help!

The consolidation of four lines into one is achievable provided there is some set logic to pin against each line 'spilled over' into the next row to identify who it should belong to.

I am rather more intrigued by the output format of Lotus Approach (which I don't use incidentally), in that, it seems to me, it is spewing out this stuff onto a 'new' line when it encounters 'fixed pair' linefeed return characters. It may be appropriate (and this is a guess) that the way to 'approach' this (pardon the pun) might be to output to some kind of text file format first. Then 'read in' the contents of the text file using certain disk file handling routines that examines the entire string length and replaces any combination of linefeed/return with just 'one' of those. This in effect serves to remove the new lines in the memo field, at which point the importation process might succeed.

Without physically looking at the data on this one, it is pretty much guess work I am afraid as to the finite solution. I tried to answer this as best I could non-techie but the answer is inevitably going to be a technical one I am afraid