Clear Items prior to import in Transactions Lists

  • 30 July 2022
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This article discusses how to use the Clear items prior to import option within Transaction lists. This option allows you to clear existing items before importing new ones. 

 

 

Clear Items prior to Import

 

This option allows you to clear items present in your Transaction list and replace them with items from the imported data.  Once enabled, you have two options to define which items are deleted from the list.  The default setting would be the entire list, the other option is to define a limited scope of items to be deleted. 

 

Entire List 

 

This option will delete all of the items within the list and replace them with the items in the import.

 

For Transaction lists with unique identifiers, any list item not present within the import will be deleted.  Any newly identified items will be created and properties will be updated for existing items.  If an item is not located within the import, it will be deleted along with any associated properties data.  If a property is not included in the import, it will not be updated and will remain on any item still located in the list.  

 

For Transaction lists without unique identifiers, the list will be deleted completely before the import.  This means any property data that is not in that list will also be deleted.  The ending result is that your transaction list will match any items and properties located within that import. 

For example, if you have a list with five properties and you import a new data set with only three properties, the two properties on the list will be left blank.

 

Limited Scope

 

This will update a smaller section of a Transaction List that is defined by properties of your transaction list that have a dimension data type.  For example, you might have an updated list of Transactions for a particular product or month and you just want those items to be replaced and not affect transactions from other months or products. 

 

When this option is selected, you will need to provide the Scope definition or which items should be deleted and replaced. When choosing the Scope definition, you will see all list Properties that have a data type of dimension.  When you select a property, the scope will be defined as all items found with that particular import.   

For example, if you select a property that uses a Month list, and your Import only contains one Month.  Only Transaction list items that have that particular Month will be deleted and replaced.  All other Transactions with a different month will be left unchanged. 

 

You can also use multiple properties to be more granular in which Transaction items get updated.  Let's say you have an updated Transaction list for one Month and a Single Product. By defining the Scope with a Month and Product Property you will only delete items that contain that particular combination of properties.  In your Transaction list, if an item’s properties do not contain items from that import, they will not be updated.

 

Examples 

 

In these examples, we have a Transaction list that currently contains Transaction items from three different Products (Products A, B, and C) and 3 months of data (January, February, and March). 

 

 

Example Entire List 

If you were to choose to delete and replace with the Entire List option.  Every single item within this list would be deleted and replaced with only items from your import.

All items would be replaced regardless of unique identifier.  The properties of the transaction list will be affected differently depending on if there is a unique identifier.

If there is no unique identifier in the list, the only properties that would be filled are the ones from the file. 

If there was a unique identifier, any property not in the file would be untouched.

 

Example Limited Scope 1 Property

 

If the file contained Transaction data for all items in the Product List but only for one January.  Select the Month property to update the file.  Because only January is present, that is the only month that will be deleted and replaced. 

 

 

Example Limited Scope Multiple Properties

If the file contained Transaction data for only one item in the Product List (Product A) and only January.  Select the Month and Product properties to update the file.  Because only one month is present and one product, you need to be more specific. 

 

If you were to choose just the Month property, it would delete all items with January as the month. So you would delete items for Product B and C.

 

If you were to choose just the Product property, it would delete all items with Product A, so you would delete items from February and March.

 

 

 


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