Preparing the Import File

Patron data imported into Theatre Manager must be in either the industry standard Tab Delimited or Comma Delimited format. This format is supported by most applications. If it is not, a tool like Microsoft Excel or Word is very useful for helping massage data before importing into Theatre Manager.

Tab delimited format means that each field in the database is separated by a tab and the last field in each record has a carriage return after it. The first record in the data may be the title of the fields for clarity, although this is not necessary.

Patron Import Sample

Company Address Line 1 Address Line 2 City State Postal Code gPhoneWork
Elk Whistle 18032-C Lemon Drive F Street Yorba Linda CA 92886 (714) 695-0994
Namah Dance and Music Ensemble 5756 Wallis Lane Woodland Hills CA 91367 626) 576-8730
L.A. SYMPHONIC WINDS 23309 Mariano Woodland Hills CA 91367 818,348-2990

Notes about the Import File

  • The first row in this import file contains a description of the fields, or columns of data. Examples are 'Company' and 'City'. The only benefit of using descriptive names for the column headers is to assist the column matching process. Because of the change where there can be many email accounts, phone numbers, addresses, etc. for a patron, we needed to create some special column titles that refer to columns that have special use for convenient importing or matching data.
  • There are some spaces at the beginning of some fields. Work Phone in the second row has some spaces before the (714) area code. Theatre Manager will remove all extra spaces at the start and end of each field.
  • Some columns have blank entries. In this case, a value for 'Address Line 2' is only present in the second row. The last two rows will be imported as blanks.
  • Theatre Manager will attempt to fix data problems during import. On the last line, 'L.A. SYMPHONIC WINDS' will be converted to 'L.A. Symphonic Winds' and '818,348-2990' will be corrected to '(818) 348-2990'. The conversion will occur depending on the parameters set in System Preferences for auto-capitalization.
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