Using import sets to update existing data records

[khabibulan]

I am a new user and am working on understanding the use of import sets to update existing records. in this case i've added a field called "room number" to the ci_computer table so I can tell where a computer is located. In a typical move situation we would need to update the room location of any computers that were moved from one place to another.

My general approach in the old system is to export data records based on their asset tag number (which is unique). Then i modify the records in Excel and reimport to overwrite/update the existing records with the new information.

When I look at the computer table in SNC i can't find the sys_id field. I'm guessing that this is the OOB unique ID for the record, but can't locate it in the available or used fields. So when I export my records and import them again they are duplicated instead of updated.

Does this make sense? Has anybody seen this happen or know how to replace the GUID field in an existing table?

[marcguy]

What you need to do is specify the Asset tag or a unique field as the coalesce field
http://wiki.service-now.com/index.php?title=Using_the_Coalesce_Field

[khabibulan]

Thanks for the info. I set the asset tag as the coalesce field and reran the transform map. It updated my data as expected. Then I modified the data in the .csv file, set my import set status to "Processed" and reran the transform map expecting it to update the data once again. But now the transform history shows that the data is being ignored. Not sure what I'm doing wrong again. Is there any documentation for this process anywhere? Thank you!

[marcguy]

This is the wiki page on imports in case you've missed that: http://wiki.service-now.com/index.php?title=Import_Sets

you can go back to the import set and mark it as loaded and try rerunning it.

we won't re-run a processed import set.

Marc

[khabibulan]

I did mark it as loaded, but still got the "ignored" entry in the log. Do i need to go to the cleanup section and dump the old data whenever an update is made to the .csv file? I had read the wiki information but didn't see this level of detail anywhere....i may have missed something.