So…this is probably not news to anyone but this tab delimited file for membership batch uploads is pretty cool. Found it while digging through forum postings from 2006. The current click path in the TD/Affiliate Area is Memberships > How-to Guide > Batch File.
Questions for the esteemed group…
(1) Has anyone found this incredibly useful?
(2) Has anyone gotten frisky and enhanced it with Excel dropdowns and/or macros?
(3) For Mike Nolan…do the new Membership Categories have any impact on the Membership Codes listed on the */batchformat.php page?
It’s hugely useful. I put all my information into an Excel spreadsheet and then save as text file.
I do have one little problem which is rather annoying. If I create the Excel file in Office 2004 for Mac and then save as a txt file I get errors on the upload file. It doesn’t seem recognize the headers. If I open the same file in Office 2003 in Windows XP and save as text file it works fine during the upload process. Go figure?
Since I’m getting ready to replace my POS Dell with a Mac I need to resolve this problem. I don’t want to have to load a windows version of Excel into my Parallels virtual machine to do that process. Bad enough I run Swiss Sys and Chess Base that way on my laptop.
Some new codes will be needed when the new non-magazine memberships become available in a few weeks. I’m not sure if any codes will need to be changed in December/January, hopefully not. (If necessary, I’ll update the Excel template as the codes become available.)
BTW, there’s a discussion draft of the data dictionary for the combined XML-based ratings and membership submission format available at:
I’m working on creating some test datasets so that I have data to test an upload program for this new format, and to see if I’ve left anything important out.