How do I load Concordance production sets?

1. Converting the DAT/CSV file automatically in MasterFile

The Concordance/CSV Converter takes Concordance DAT files or load files in different CSV formats and converts them automatically to a MasterFile CSV load file that you can load with a few clicks and no editing, directly with Express Load.

In this article we cover DAT files; we'll look at generic CSV files in the following one.

  1. Click on 'Select DAT/CSV load file'.
  2. Navigate to your production set and choose its DAT/CSV file, which is then shown here.

Mapping fields

Now, map the fields from the DAT/CSV file to the fields in the lower section of the Concordance Converter window like this

Note that each field has a "?" preceding its name with extensive pop-up help and examples of what to look for in the DAT/CSV file preview explained next. Simply click and hold any field's question mark as circled above to pop-up its help.

Preview

Since the field names in a DAT/CSV file can vary depending on how it was created, and there can be several similar looking fields, Preview shows you the DAT/CSV file's content so you can map the appropriate fields.

Preview displays a range of 100 lines from the DAT/CSV file starting by default at line 2.

If you need to set the start or end of a new range,

  1. Click the appropriate radio button and then
  2. Click Preview.
  3. Select the line and then click OK.

To jump quickly to the end of a file, type any large number in the field, select the ending line radio button, click Preview and then click OK.

Preview is displayed as below. This DAT/CSV file contains several DOCUMENT TYPE cols but only col #8 contains values describing the type of documents, so that's what we'll use.

In the example above, that DAT/CSV file contained different field names and we would use Preview to see which one (or ones) map to the appropriate Converter fields -- in some cases, more than one column contains the same type of info and only one is appropriate but in some cases, more than one contains data and all those would be selected to be mapped to the same field.

If a field in the Converter window is not present in the DAT/CSV file, you can skip it.

When the DAT/CSV file contains Bates number and attachment fields as below, it's very important not to omit attachments when selecting a range to load in Preview. For this reason, Preview colour codes documents and their attachments. Documents are flagged in green and immediately after, their attachments in red. See the Express Load section below for an example of this.

  • Select a range starting on a green row and end it on a red one. If a document has no attachments it will show both green and red.

Running the conversion

Once the fields are all complete, click OK to begin.

  • Note that you may be required to re-enter the last line of the file (or of a range) to ensure complete document/attachment sets.

When the process ends, a subfolder is created in the original production folder called "MASTERFILE -- EXP LOAD ..." containing a MasterFile load file and all documents ready to import directly with Express Load.

2. Loading the documents with Express Load
  • Start Express Load
  • Navigate to your documents, and
  • Select the subfolder "MASTERFILE -- EXP LOAD ..." as explained above. In the screen shot below there happen to be three subfolders as I did several tests. The one to pick is the latest (you can check the time stamp in the filename to be sure).
  • Click on the file "ConcConv -- DAT for MF ExpressLoad ..."

You'll see this message.

  • Click OK
  • Set the end of the file (or end of the range if appropriate) using Preview.

You can see here the green/red markers. Since there are no attachments, if loading a range, you can pick any line to end on; if there were, you'd start on a green and end on a red.

On the Express Load window, you'll see all options are preset.

Note that

  1. If there was a valid document type in the original DAT that was converted to MasterFile document type formats, it will be used; if not the original value from the Concordance DAT file is used and flagged with the prefix "Concordance Converter\...". You can then create the document type in MasterFile, find these documents under the by Document Type view and use Global Replace to replace the temporary value with your newly created keyword.
  2. "Whose document" is set by default to "Theirs" since this is a production set you received.
  3. Any missing required keyword values are flagged here with the summary/description from the original DAT/CSV file. You can clean these up at one go or review them individually to clean up with Power Assisted Edit.
  4. Same as #3 above.
3. Advanced operations

At the Express Load stage, before loading, you can add whatever columns you like in the correct MasterFile syntax to the Express Load file CSV file you will use at the start of Step 2. For example, you can add a column for Issues and those rows with a value will be assigned that issue in MasterFile. You should be familiar with the MasterFile  Import/Export CSV guide before attempting this.