Import/Export
Import/Export is an optional add-on for Campaign ToolBox designed for campaigns that have large quantities of Contributions to report. It is not included in the price of the regular license. This feature allows a campaign to have multiple copies of the program being used to input Contributions, create export files of those Contributions, and then import them into the main program used by the Treasurer to create the reports. Only Contribution records are processed (not Expenses). This is available only on the Single Reporting Entity license, and is not available for all states. The price for this is $100 per year.
The file that is created includes the date span being exported. For example, an export file containing records from 01/12/2007 through 01/30/2007 would be named "ImportSource_01-12-2007_to_01-30-2007.txt"
Before a file is imported into the program, it checks one record to see if it already exists in the database file. If it does exist, a warning message is displayed. This helps prevent accidentally importing the same file more than once.
While the inner workings are complex, the actual importing and exporting operations are very simple from the user's point of view. The function is accessed by clicking on the "Activities" menu item. You select the starting and ending dates of the records to be exported, then click on the Export button. To import the file, you browse to locate the file and click the Import button.
The export files are in tab-delimited format, which means that you can import them into Excel to create your own Contribution reports. You can also create your own export files if you have contribution records in an Excel spreadsheet. You should first create a sample export file to see exactly how the file should look before attempting this. Campaign ToolBox expects to receive the data in a very specific format, so be very careful if you are creating your own file to be imported rather than using Campaign ToolBox to create the file. Details of the file format and how the feature works are available here.
