I use a macro program for things like that.
I have it copy and paste the part number from the spread sheet into evo/dba
then I have it tab to the field I want to change
switch back to the sheet.
 
and the copy and paste the change from the same spreadsheet sheet
at the end I go back to the PN in the sheet change the color and and move down one then to the next number
 
end the macro
 
then I just loop the macro till the all the changes are all done
 
Wintask works well with DBA
 
not so well with EVO
 
I did get good results with JitBit Macro Recorder in evo
was kinda slow compared to some of the ones Ive run in DBA with wintask
 
I've made many thousands of item changes that way.  Sure beats typing them by hand
other folks who can program can do it with SQL but I don't know how to do that.
 
just run the macro at a reasonable speed and it will get the job done
too fast and it will hang or screw up  

yes old school, but works.
 
I'm sure you could do an sql or something with access to do it but with the macro I didn't have to worry about screwing up the data with a bad sql program and it gave me a way to get it done without paying someone else to write and test code or key in the changes manually.
 
I've used wintask to do some jobs that would have taken years of manual work and knocked it out in a 2 weeks by having it take command of a spare computer using excel, word, Autocad, and a few other programs to get all the documentation for every item in my system into 1 word document per part and then link the docs and part thumbnails to dba.
 
I have over 10,000 word doc's  and thumbnails now linked to DBA part numbers.
probably generated about 9000 of them painlessly with macros pulling the files together and doing data entry while I did something else.
 
would like to be able to print inv stuff by rack
labels, counts, ect.
 
I used a macro to copy the first two bin / shelf letters into category code for doing a rack at time for inventory
 
we use codes like  AB12   so rack A shelf B bin 12  I copied the AB part to category code and then did inventory by category. I know that wont work for everyone but it got me over the inventory issue at that time.
 
That was before I finally got my boms under control and I gave up trying to count my way to an accurate inventory.

Hey Lynn/Shadow, thanks for this.
 
Yeah shadow, I have little SQL experience, I can use MS Query in Excel to pull in data, but pushing it back is something I'm not comfortable with, I like your macro idea. I may have to look into this, We also link all our drawings/doc files to EvoLinks, doing it by hand is a pain, then it someone moves/renames the files, talk about a whole other headache. I also like the thought of using the Category field for inventory sorting. Almost forgot about that one.
 
Lynn, thanks for the GenImp settings. I get nervous using that app, but hoping that does the trick.
 

Well I made a backup copy of MTICMSTR.B, tried a general import which gave a btrieve error (2?) at around 120 of 1000 imports, now some of my inventory items state (in IN-B) that the item doesn't exist in MTICMSTR and will be recreated, some data may be lost and I get another Btrieve (2) error.
 
Seems like some of the entries in mticmstr are not accessible? Random entries too, not just the ones I tried an import on.
 
Restoring the backup mticmstr.b file did nothing, still getting the btrieve (2) error.
 
Edit: my MTICMSTR.B file is the same size (about 146megs), but when I look at it under maintain database it seems like a lot of data is missing or blank. what the hell?

If you use a macro to do edits you don't have to worry about a lot of little things that evo will do in the background when changes are made to the data.
 
stuffing changes directly in the tables and screwing up the evo data logic is the main reason I don't like to edit the data directly.
 
Id rather go a little slower and let evo do the data manipulation so I don't have to worry or understand about the details of what happens behind the screens.