[Koha] adding patrons in a batch - getting errors

[Katrin Fischer]

Hi Christy,

Am 01.04.2015 um 06:47 schrieb ChristyThomas:
> FIRST EMAIL:
> One attempt, nothing imported. Said something not expected format which
> almost certainly means phone numbers or dates. I'm going to have to play
> around a little to determine what is hanging it up... perhaps later tonight.

Dates should be in your chosen date format or the database format
YYYY-MM-DD to work well. Phone numbers are not checked for a special format.

The error might also refer to a wrong branchcode or categorycode. They
should match what you have defined in your database and you need to use
the codes, not the descriptions. Sometimes an additional space that
sneaked in can make the difference.

> SECOND EMAIL:
> I took it down to only names and the required codes and it still wouldn't
> load. The error messages are below. It appears it doesn't like my header
> row, which I copied from their instructions. Says it could not be parsed. I
> searched on that error message and I appear to be not the only one who has
> this problem, and they system does not think that it is a csv, but tab
> separated. I'm going to work on it tomorrow on a break and try a couple
> other ways to see if I can find a way for it to be a csv file that system
> recognizes. xoxo Mom 

Make sure the header row has no quotes, but looks something like
cardnumber,branchcode,surname,...

Also try checking the file in a text editor instead of Excel or
LibreOffice. Often it's easier to spot problems that way. Is the file
really comma separated? Are strings enclosed in quotes? Does the number
of header row fields match the number of values in your data?

I am not sure about the error with the cardnumber as I think I haven't
run into that so far. The cardnumber existing in the database should not
be a problem, as it can be used as a matching point for updating
patrons, but you can also create a patron whose cardnumber doesn't exist
yet.

Hope this helps,

Katrin