In this tutorial you will learn to overwrite and update existing records in a database, using the import feature in the DATA MANAGEMENT tab and Microsoft Excel . This can be helpful to edit database records in bulk, or to keep databases in sync with ground truth Excel files.
If you want to delete a record from a database, you may prefer this approach.
How to update and overwrite records in a database
In this tutorial, we will demonstrate how to update an existing database using Microsoft Excel. This update will refer to the selected environment only. We will use an Employee Manager Assignment database as an example:
- Go to the database you want to update.
- Click on the Export icon to download all records as a .csv file.
- In MS Excel, open a new workbook and import the .csv file, as described here.
- Change the fields of your records as needed. In our example, the employee Samantha Brown was recently promoted to Senior Marketing Specialist and Nigel Byers has replaced Andrew Kim as Operations Manager. Then, save as a .csv file.
- Return to your database, upload the file, and import the updated records. Existing records will be overwritten so you will have the edited version in the database after upload.
💡 Note that records are sorted by last update, therefore, the updated records will display at the top.
💡 You can also configure new database fields in the CONFIGURATION tab, then, switch back to the DATA MANAGEMENT tab to add new information using this approach.