Have you ever wanted to switch, move, copy or change
that data that was in one field with the data that’s in another field?
ACT!’s Replace feature (version 3 & 4) gives you these capabilities.
In this article I will show you how to make these features work for you.
Swap Fields
When you swap fields, you are exchanging the
contents of one field with the contents of another field. Lets say that
you have information in User Field 3 that you would like to place in User
Field 9 because User Field 9 holds 75 characters and User Field 3 holds
only 50.
This is how you swap the contents of User Field 3 with
User Field 9:
1. Perform a lookup of the contacts whose fields you
wish to swap.
2. Open the Replace Fields
window by selecting Edit, Replace.
3. Select Replace, Swap Fields. The Swap Fields
Contents box opens. See Figure 5.
4. Select User Field 3 in the Swap Contents Of
box, and User Field 9 in the With Contents Of box.
5. Click OK and ACT! swaps the contents of the
fields.
Copy Fields
This is how you copy the contents of one field and
place it in another field.
1. Perform a lookup of the contacts whose fields you
wish to copy.
2. Open the Replace Fields
window by selecting Edit, Replace.
3. Select Replace, Copy A Field. The Copy Fields
Contents box opens. See Figure 6.
4. Select the field whose contents you wish to copy
from the drop-down list in the Copy Contents Of field.
5. Select the field you wish to receive the field
contents from the drop-down list in the To field.
6. Click OK and ACT! copies the contents of one field
to another.
Deleting A Field
From time to time you may want to delete the contents
of a field. This is how you do it:
1. Perform a lookup of the contacts that have a field
whose contents you wish to delete.
2. Open the Replace Fields
window by selecting Edit, Replace.
3. Place the cursor in the field whose contents you
wish to delete.
4. Press the Ctrl+F5 key. ACT! inserts
<<BLANK>> in the field.
5. Select Replace, Apply and ACT! clears the contents
of the selected field of all the records in the lookup.
Two Additional Tips
I’ve two tips I would like to pass along:
-
Always check to make sure you know the exact Field
Name of a field before making any switches. For example, the Field
Label might say Industry Code, but the field’s actual name might be
SIC Code. There is nothing to say that the Field Names and Field
Labels have to be an exact match. To find the Field Names simply
select Tools, Design Layouts and you will see the underlying names.
-
Always backup your database before you swap or copy
ACT! fields. I once had a client who thought he performed a lookup
before he executed the Field Copy command and ended up copying fields
in all 7000 records instead of just the ones he wanted.
Happy swapping.
