Forms – Merge Data

  • Forms – Merge Data

    Posted by mleinback on January 17, 2024 at 8:29 am

    I have about 40 copies of the same form, created in BB Revu, to which data has been added. I want to merge the data into Excel. Thus far, I can get the “merge data” tool to work properly IF I limit the process to about 6 forms, but when I try to merge all 40 (or even 15), the process goes awry.

    Specifically, once the process is complete, I can find the resulting Excel file in my Recent Files folder of Explorer, but when I try to open it, Windows tells me that the file cannot be found, has been moved, etc. The file is not in the location that I defined when I started the Merge process. It appears that once the file is created, either BB or Windows is deleting the file. Any thoughts?

    Liz Larsen replied 8 months, 2 weeks ago 4 Members · 11 Replies
  • 11 Replies
  • Isaac Harned

    Member
    January 17, 2024 at 10:51 am
    Points: 7,791
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

    I have recently started playing with this feature. I have not tested on 40 files, but the test I ran on about 20 of them seemed to work alright. More on this to come.

  • Doug McLean

    Member
    January 17, 2024 at 12:36 pm
    Points: 14,588
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII

    I have not had this issue either.
    Normally it saves the report to the folder where the last files were uploaded from

  • mleinback

    Member
    January 17, 2024 at 12:52 pm
    Points: 835
    Rank: UC2 Brainery White Belt III UC2 Brainery White Belt III

    For what it’s worth, I have tried this process on both my work computer (attached to a Sharepoint network) and my home computer (which is totally standalone). Both machines yield identical results.

  • Liz Larsen

    Member
    January 18, 2024 at 9:13 am
    Points: 4,855
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII

    I’ve done the opposite using VBA. If anyone remembers when @mitchyoungs showed up for a glorious 5 minutes and blew all our minds, I learned how he did that and recreated it for another use-case.

    So if worse comes to worse and you don’t find another solution, I might be able reverse the process and take data from multiple forms and combine them into a spreadsheet. DM me on LinkedIn if you’d like to try that route.

    Otherwise, maybe if I tag @mitchyoungs again he’ll come out of hiding to show us how he does the reverse, because I’m pretty sure he has a way to do it. (Or maybe he’s like Beetlejuice and you have to say his name 3 times, idk.)

    • Isaac Harned

      Member
      January 18, 2024 at 10:21 am
      Points: 7,791
      Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

      Indeed, I also have a macro that converts FDF files into workable excel. Mine only works on one sheet at a time though, I think his is more comprehensive.

    • Doug McLean

      Member
      January 18, 2024 at 11:15 am
      Points: 14,588
      Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII

      I need to go see that. Do you know how often I want to take Excel Data and put it into a form?

      • Liz Larsen

        Member
        January 18, 2024 at 12:36 pm
        Points: 4,855
        Rank: UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII

        @Doug McLean , I can help you with that.

        I have time tomorrow afternoon (we have half day Fridays where I work). I’m free at 1pm Eastern. DM me on LinkedIn and we can set something up.

        • Isaac Harned

          Member
          January 31, 2024 at 11:39 pm
          Points: 7,791
          Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II UC2 Brainery Purple Belt II

          Did you guys ever get this working smoothly? I figured out a way and wrote a couple of modules to so the heavy lifting, but its still a little manual when I have over 1300 fields. The character limit for a cell in excel is getting in my way a bit lol.

          • Liz Larsen

            Member
            February 1, 2024 at 8:03 am
            Points: 4,855
            Rank: UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII

            I gave him some stuff I made previously for someone else, both files and a video I made explain how it all works.

            Do you want me to hook you up? 😉

            And, as always, feel free to forward your VBA or JavaScript to me and I’ll take a look for any efficiencies that I can find.

  • Doug McLean

    Member
    February 1, 2024 at 11:09 am
    Points: 14,588
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Blue Belt IIII

    We’re actually thinking up whole new workflows now that we have this information.
    We just have to sit down and actually implement them…🤣🤣

    • Liz Larsen

      Member
      February 1, 2024 at 12:01 pm
      Points: 4,855
      Rank: UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII

      I love when that happens!

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