Linkage to Excel or Access

[allanl]

I am having trouble linking to Excel using 5..1.6.1.0.33.

I populated a site with an Excel 2003 csv spreadsheet which imported easily creating categories and sections.

I tried to link to this spreadsheet from Actinic but could not.

I used an Access 2003 table and had no problem linking and checking the 3 boxes to connect the Actinic database with the Access table.

Here are the problems:

Although linked, I do not see any propigation of the Actinic data in the Access database! What step have I missed?

In addition, I do not see any way to linking categories and sections to create new Actinic items for sale.

I've noticed that you can do a flat file import and there are matching fields for this, but not in the linkage section. Why is this.

Thanks for anybody's insight.

[Jan]

Although linked, I do not see any propigation of the Actinic data in the Access database! What step have I missed?

External database linking is used to link an external database into Actinic, rather than the other way around, when you add data into your external database a new section will appear at the bottom of the tree called something like 'unlinked external products', you then drag and drop these products into the appropriate sections.

You can link to excel using this method, but fields must be less that 255 characters long and you have to make sure that the product reference field is a text field.

Regards,

[allanl]

So I need to create the Access database with under 255 character fields and link it to an empty Actinic database?

When the link is created, each item must be dragged to its right place?

That leads to two questions -

Why does a flat file import create sections, but the linkage approach doesn't?

How do you get around the 255 character issue? I know it probably related to Access, but I don't know what several fields can't be linked and imported in one desctiption.

In addition, Excel appears superior since it creates the sections and lets you import more than 255 characters.

Is there a trick to importing and then linking to the Excel spreadsheet, since this seems better than Access?

[allanl]

And one last question I forgot - why can't Actinic export (or link to and populate) an Excel flat or Access database?

I know that complex Actinic databases may not be exportable, but surely not the simple ones?

It would make working with Actinic much easier.

[Jan]

So I need to create the Access database with under 255 character fields and link it to an empty Actinic database?

No, the 255 limit is for using the external database linking feature when used with excel. Actually having checked it that might not be true - the problem only seems to occur when you link an access memo field into excel, in that case, values over 255 in length are truncated.

There are three ways of getting information into actinic from external datasources.

1) External linking, this has a limited number of fields available but allows you to import data from your existing databases.

2) Flat file linking - this is what you have been calling excel linking, again a limited number of fields are available here.

3) Hierarchical linking - this allows you to populate any field in Actinic but is a bit complicated to set up.

The three methods are covered well in the help files that come with Actinic.

Regards,