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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS > Converting Data from Membership Plus |
DONATION can convert and import much of your data from the Membership Plus program, which many users seem to be switching from.
If you are using the Local Network Version of DONATION, the conversion can only be done from the Local Network Server Version - it cannot be used from the Local Network Client Version.
Currently DONATION can convert from 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Membership Plus 2007), 11 and 12 of Membership Plus. If you have a different version and want to have your data converted, you will need to send a copy of your Membership Plus database files to Software4Nonprofits for analysis, in order to have the program enhanced to convert that version's data as well.
If you only want to import donor information from Membership Plus (any version), you can see this section instead.
The information that can be converted from your Membership Plus database is your organization information, donation categories (funds), donors (members) and donations (contributions) for all years of data that it contains.
If you are using Membership Plus, and its data is located in the standard Membership Plus data directory, then the first time you run DONATION, it will prompt you with a message box, asking whether to convert and import your data. If you answer Yes to that message box, it will automatically transfer much of your data from Membership Plus into the DONATION database. You can see the progress of the conversion in a window that will be displayed on the screen.
If you answer No the conversion message box, it will just start you up with an empty DONATION database normally, and prompt you to enter your Organization Info and Categories just as it would if you did not have Membership Plus. You can transfer your data later using the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ From Membership Plus menu option. If you answer Cancel to the conversion message box, the program will exit.
If you use the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ From Membership Plus menu option, you will be prompted to select the directory where your Membership Plus database files are located. From there, just follow the prompts to have your Membership Plus data imported into DONATION.
A number of files are imported, starting with importing the organization name etc. from ORGDATA.DBF (for versions of Membership Plus through version 7) or ORGDATA.DAT (for Membership Plus version 8 or higher). If one of those files is not found in the folder you are trying to import from, it does not contain Membership Plus data and this will not work.
If all you have is a Membership Plus backup file (which could be called MPLUSWIN.ZIP in older versions of Membership Plus, or something like MPBackup_(date)_(time).ZIP in newer versions) you will have to extract the files from that compressed Zip file. That can be done through Windows Explorer, Computer or My Computer by right-clicking on the file and picking Open, then in the window that comes up, choosing to Extract all files. Once you have extracted the files, you will be able to restart this menu option and use the directory the files were extracted to for the conversion.
The full list of files that are read as part of the conversion for versions of Membership Plus through version 7 are: ADDRESS.DBF, CCURSPLT.DBF, CFNDSPLT.DBF, CONTRIB.DBF, FUNDS.DBF, MEMBERS.DBF, and ORGDATA.DBF. (For version 4, the file names are slightly different: ADDRESS.DBF, CONTRIB.DBF, CURSPLIT.DBF, FNDSPLIT.DBF, FUNDS.DBF, MEMBERS.DBF and ORGDATA.DB.)
For Membership Plus version 8 or higher, the required files for the conversion are roughly the same ones, with ".DAT" extensions instead, specifically: ADDRESS.DAT, CCURSPLT.DAT, CFNDSPLT.DAT, CONTRIB.DAT, FUNDS.DAT, FUNDS.BLB, MEMBERS.DAT, and ORGDATA.DAT. (Note that this second list has one extra file - FUNDS.BLB.)
For Membership Plus 8 or higher, particularly if you are doing this on a computer that doesn't have Membership Plus installed on it (only a copy of the database files) you may be prompted to download and run a ODBC driver installation file called donationDbisam.exe, which is needed for the program to be able to read the data out of the Membership Plus database files. Just follow the prompts to do so.
The conversion of data from Membership Plus completely replaces any data that you already had in your DONATION database.
Note: Importing and converting your data from Membership Plus does not affect your existing Membership Plus data in any way - you will still be able to run Membership Plus after this (if you were able to run it before!).
If you are converting from another program, see this section instead.
Some specific notes on the conversion:
•You are given an option to skip importing any donors that do not have any donations.
•Member records for families (as opposed to individuals) are only imported as donors if they have donations. (DONATION has no notion of families, only individuals.) The family name for families that are being imported is split into a First Name and Last Name field, at an appropriate space, after you specify, on the first such name found, whether the name is in the format "First Last" or "Last First". (Both formats have been seen in actual data sets being converted, as well as things like "The Smith Family", which unfortunately will get split up in an inappropriate way.)
•Deleted donors and donors marked as deceased are only imported if they have donations. Any such imported donor records will have "DELETED" added in the Business Name field for easy identification on the Donor List.
•When organizations are imported, if there is a contact name, it is split up and saved as the First Name and Last Name. (The organization name is saved as the Business Name.)
•If you have multiple years of donations in Membership Plus, in years prior to the latest year, only donors that have donations are saved, to avoid filling up the database unnecessarily. If for any reason you want to restore all donors that are in the latest year to an earlier year, you can use the Database ⇒ Copy Missing Donors menu option.
•Funds marked as not being Active are not imported as donation categories, unless there are contributions associated with them. (In Membership Plus 4, you cannot mark funds as inactive, so all funds are imported.)
•At least some versions of Membership Plus allow funds to be created with no names (which seems like a bug!). In DONATION, they need names. Such funds are given names like "Fund Number 24" in the conversion, based on a unique internal fund number in Membership Plus, which is not displayed to the users. These funds are only imported if there are donations that use them.
•Some Membership Plus fields are longer than the corresponding fields in DONATION. If necessary, field contents will be truncated (cut down) to the maximum size in DONATION. If this happens, you will be shown a file of all such fixes after the conversion is completed, which you can print out and use to fix any problems caused by this truncation.