Importing players with CSV

[jodybingo]

I exported a list of players from two tournaments (first name, last name and internal ID). I created a new tournament and imported the players through the Import button on the players tab. TD did not recognize any of my players as being in my database. Is it possible for TD to recognize the players are already in the DB?
Jody

[Stuart Murray]

not as such,

You can only import to the players tab or import to the database, I regullarly import to the players tab but do not add them to the database for regional finals etc as it would just junk up my database with players that don't need to be there.

Regards
Stuart

[Corey Cooper]

The import process should recognize that you are attempting to import players that have the same first name, last name, and/or nickname combinations, and, if I recall correctly, should not "check" the box to import those players automatically.  So while it doesn't really recognize those players as already being in your database, it does try to match them up and prevent you from importing them.  Perhaps it's not doing a great job at that, I don't know.

But this does bring up a good point.  If you are importing players from a CSV file that includes the Internal ID, the import process should recognize this and not import the player.  In fact, I believe it should not allow you to import the player, because, if it did import using the Internal ID in the file (which it probably should but does not do now), you would then have two players with the same Internal ID, which would be bad.  I'll put this on the list of things to address.

[jodybingo]

Here was my goal...
We ran a tournament with 2 day 1s and a day 2. I created 2 separate tournaments for each day 1 then exported their first name, last name and internal ID (2 separate CSVs).
I then created a third tournament and imported the players from 1a and then imported those from 1b. If I recall correctly, TD did not allow me to import when the Internal ID was attached. I deleted this column and imported again. My hope was that I could import (with Internal ID) and TD recognizes and associated the player being imported with the already existing player bearing the same internal ID.
When TD did not make the association I had to merge all. Also, I am not sure if this is normal behavior but when I click on Merge All, TD just brings up a list of the players in my DB in alphabetical order (minus the players already in my DB that are already in my tournament). I was originally under the impression that TD would try to match up players when they had the same info on the players tab as in their file.

[Corey Cooper]

Here was my goal...
We ran a tournament with 2 day 1s and a day 2. I created 2 separate tournaments for each day 1 then exported their first name, last name and internal ID (2 separate CSVs).
I then created a third tournament and imported the players from 1a and then imported those from 1b. If I recall correctly, TD did not allow me to import when the Internal ID was attached.

The TD will always let you import.  And from pretty much any kind of CSV file, with all kinds of extraneous data.  You just have to match up the columns correctly.  However, I realize now that when I made the Internal ID field visible, importing and exporting (well, importing at least) is an area of the program I don't think I completely covered.  I just tried this and while it sees the Internal ID column in the file I will be importing, and acts as if it will import it, it doesn't.  But it does successfully import the players.

I deleted this column and imported again. My hope was that I could import (with Internal ID) and TD recognizes and associated the player being imported with the already existing player bearing the same internal ID.

First of all, where are you importing?  From the Players tab?  And if so, what is your real goal?  Are you hoping to populate the player list with an import file, but if a player on the list already exists in your database, the "import" process should not add a new player to the tournament, but rather "add" the corresponding player from the database?  If so, this is not what the import process was intended to do (although it might be the right thing to do in the end).

When TD did not make the association I had to merge all. Also, I am not sure if this is normal behavior but when I click on Merge All, TD just brings up a list of the players in my DB in alphabetical order (minus the players already in my DB that are already in my tournament). I was originally under the impression that TD would try to match up players when they had the same info on the players tab as in their file.

It does do this (try to match players in the tournament to be merged with players already in your database).  I'll be the first to admit it doesn't do a real good job of this (although I just tried it on a random tournament and it actually did do a good job, oddly).  Regardless, it will try to match players, and the matching algorithm is pretty loose, so I would be surprised to see it not find a single match.

I'll have to revisit the import process, because at the very least it either should not allow importing of the Internal ID, or it should probably do what I mentioned earlier, and allow you to add the already existing player to the tournament instead.