I backed up my data in Admin Panel to a file called links.sql. If I import it back through admin panel, what will happen? Is it going to replace all my data or is it going to append to my existing data? I have 18 categories. Can I choose one category to import only?

What is the best format to import into Links SQL? Excel or text file? Do I need to edit the format of data that will be imported into Links SQL? What will be the appropriate format to follow such as delimitors, spaces, how many fields, etc? I have several database files, each from a different vendor. Each file should be imported as a category. How do I proceed with this? When I import a file, will it replace all my data? Can I tell Links that it should be a seperate category?

Hi,

If you used Database->Import Export->Backup, then that is a complete backup. If you hit restore, it will restore all your links and categories. You can selectively backup categories unfortunately.

To import into Links SQL, you should use delimtied text files. Goto Database->Links->Properties->Export data, and try exporting the data to see what it looks like. When importing you can choose whether you want to overwrite or append data.

Cheers,

Alex
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Gossamer Threads Inc.

Alex:

You said "You can selectively backup categories unfortunately." What you mean is that I cannot selectively backup a category. I cannot specifically choose to restore a category from my backup of all my categories. Am I right?

From what you said, it seems that an ideal file for import is a text file. How do I make sure (or tell Links) what field in my file goes into a designated field in Links? For instance, in my text file I have title, url, and description. They should go into corresponding fields in Links during importing. How do I know that they don't go into the wrong fields? Do you have rules such as delimiter is a white space, there should be 10 fields and their names should be .... If I try a test text file to import into my Links, am I going to mess up my good data in Links? What will be the consequences if fields don't match?