Initial Shelter and Foster Claimer Lookup Columns not populating correctly during Excel Import

[YBrown1]

I have been fighting my tables for three days now and finally gotten the data types correct for them to import. But now, for my animal table, my Initial shelter column is importing the shelter location instead of the shelter ID and the foster claimer isn't importing anything at all. Help please, somebody, anybody! TIA.

[yodalearns24]

I think the first and most important thing to do is establish which table is your parent table and which are the child tables. This way, as you're creating relationships between them, it's already clearly established. In this case, the shelter is the parent table, and that's what connects the other two tables together.

Before starting to import, I used an alternative key to connect my shelters table. Here, the shelter ID would serve as your alternative key. When importing data into Dataverse, make sure you start with the parent table. Ensure that all relationships are correctly mapped when importing your shelters table to maintain data integrity.

Additionally, could you please let me know what your primary column is for each table?

[YBrown1]

A column called FosterFamilyName is the primary column for my foster table which I forgot I couldn't change after it's created. ShelterLocation is the primary column for the Shelter table. Was I making a mistake in removing those choices when trying to map my Excel csv files? I clicked on the relationships tab but was unsure of what to do on that screen and I didnt want to mess anything else up so I left them alone. 

[yodalearns24]

Can you send a photo of your 3 tables displaying the columns and data types. 

You definitely need to map the lookup columns cause that is what connects the tables.
I think your Initial shelter column is importing the shelter location instead of the shelter ID because your primary column for the Shelters (parent table) is Shelter Location not Shelter ID. 

Is your data type for the Local Shelter (FosterFamily) a look up?

[YBrown1]

[YBrown1]

[YBrown1]

[yodalearns24]

What data have you been able to import? The ShelterID was it a single line of text when you were first uploading the data? Since the Animal data has look up fields in both the shelter and foster family table it has to be the last one to be imported. I am no expert so I may not be 100% correct/ and there are many ways to do the same thing but hope this is helping. 

This is a great video from Super User of the Month | Ahmed Salih that helped me understand how to best import excel data into dataverse https://youtu.be/07uStu1o0eQ?si=fx5PPXCHN32pT1jk

[YBrown1]

I was able to import the shelter table and foster family table. My animal table is where I'm stuck. It imports everything except the two lookup fields and the photo but I assume the photo is because its an image data type that I'll have to do manually. But my Foster Claimer column wont populate anything at all and the initial shelter column imports the shelter location (address) instead of the shelter ID. I was able to import all of them before (AI) but I noticed all the data types weren't available when trying to change them.

[Oyin]

Your animal table lookup fields will be populated based on the primary name columns of those (shelter and foster) tables just as @yodalearns24 mentioned. 

Also you do not need to upload the pictures manually if you already created a Photo Url column in your Animals table. Just ensure that the data type is of url format.