Import and batch update constituent information

Abbie Stevens
Abbie Stevens
Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

I want to batch update the university affiliation (student, faculty/staff, alum, etc.), which we will save to the ‘Target’ field under Demographic. I've found how to import and batch update constituent addresses, and how to batch add constituents, but there doesn't seem to be a way to import and batch update other information tied to individual constituent records. When I run it with the Lookup/Constituent ID and Last Name to match records, it finds that everyone is a ‘duplicate’ constituent and throws errors. Has anyone else dealt with a problem like this, and how did you solve it? Thanks!

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  • KAS Shannon Knight
    KAS Shannon Knight
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @Abbie Stevens, are you using the Constituent Update Batch? If you're using the Constituent Batch Basic or the Constituent Batch, the assumption is that they're new records being added, not existing ones being updated.

  • Abbie Stevens
    Abbie Stevens
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @KAS Shannon Knight
    I don't have an option just called Constituent Update Batch in the templates. There's Constituent Address Update Batch (I've tried that, but it won't let me update demographic information) and Constituent Batch and Constituent Basic Batch (which are for adding new people).

  • Abbie Stevens
    Abbie Stevens
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @Abbie Stevens @KAS Shannon Knight Update: the template wasn't called “Constituent Update Batch” because i had already renamed it “University Demographic Batch” when I was trying to use it, though the workflow name is Constituent Update Batch. So, yes I've tried that and can't get it to update the Demographic information.

  • KAS Shannon Knight
    KAS Shannon Knight
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @Abbie Stevens, you'll have to create a new batch template. From batch entry, click on Batch Templates in the tools section in the upper left. Once on the Batch Templates page, hit Add and choose Constituent Update Batch. Make sure you have the fields you need, save, and then use that new template for your import.

  • Abbie Stevens
    Abbie Stevens
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant First Anniversary

    @KAS Shannon Knight Thanks! This is what I tried to do before my original post. As you can see from the attached screenshot, “Constituent Update Batch” isn't a possible Batch Type. Are there any other ways or workarounds you might know of? Or if it's even possible to write a script for the API to update other constituent information? I really appreciate your efforts to help!

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