Thank you to Brother Piepgrass, Cardston FHC Director for sharing the following information:
We had our films listed in a Microsoft Works spread sheet. I went from Microsoft works spreadsheet to an Open Office Spreadsheet. From this I produced the necessary delimited file. Then I loaded this delimited file to Inventory Manager, and uploaded from there.
Most of the columns were blank. Perhaps only field 1 is really required to have values, but I included description and location fields also.
There are two documents of interest for importing to IM.
The following link should work for the first document. Since I can’t find a link that works for the second, I have included the full text as I received it. I thought it would be easier to find these documents but they don’t seem to be generally available.
https://help.familysearch.org/publishing/491/5607c_en_f.SAL_LocalSupport.html
Below is the text from Knowledge Document 5545c_en “Inventory Manager 2.2 import specifications for extended-loan film data”, which provides the file layout needed to import film information into Inventory Manager.
The file must be an ASCII text file (either DOS or Windows ASCII).
It must be a delimited, variable-length file, using the vertical bar (|) as field delimiter, and have one record per line with a carriage return as a record separator. Do not use quotation marks as a text qualifier.
The fields to be imported are:
GSNumber|DNumber|FicheParts|OrderCardNumber|Description|LocalityDescription|Surname|DateOrdered|DateShipped|DateReceived|Date1stRenewal|Date2ndRenewal|DateNotifyReceived.
The fields must be in the order listed above. If your system does not have the information for a field, skip it, but still include the vertical bar separator for that field. There should be 12 vertical bar separators per record.
Do not include the field names as the first record.
Note: All dates must be in month, day, year order, with a four-digit year and with leading zeros in day and month, using the forward slash as a separator. For example: 02/01/1999
Field Descriptions:
Field 1: GSNumber (Text 7): The film number assigned to the film in the Family History Library Catalog. This field is required. It is seven characters long. It must include leading zeros, and no alphabetical characters are allowed.
Field 2: Dnumber (Text 7): The part of the barcode number on the film box preceding the film number, beginning with a character, followed by a hyphen and a five-digit number. This field is optional. Note: This is the way Distribution Services distinguishes between multiple copies of the same film in the collection. If your system does not track this field, leave it blank.
Field 3: Fiche Parts (Number 4): The number of individual sheets of fiche assigned to the same fiche GS number. This field is optional. It will be set to A1″ by the system.
Field 4: OrderCardNumber (Number 6): The order number the film was originally ordered on. This field is six digits long. If your system does not track this number, leave it blank. Only numbers will be accepted. This field is optional.
Field 5: Description (Text 255): The title of the film as found in the Family History Library Catalog or a short description of the contents of the film. This field is optional. The field will accept 255 characters. Any more than that will be truncated.
Field 6: LocalityDescription (Text 255): The locality covered by the content of the film. This field is optional. The field will accept 255 characters. Any more than that will be truncated.
Field 7: Surname (Text 255): The surname that the content of the film is about. This field is optional. The field will accept 255 characters. Any more than that will be truncated.
Field 8: DateOrdered (MM/DD/YYYY): The date the film was ordered from Salt Lake City. This field is optional. (The date will be stored as ADate Created on System@).
Field 9: DateShipped (MM/DD/YYYY): The date the film was shipped by Distribution Services. This field is optional. If your file does not contain this date, the system will use the default, 01/01/1991.
Field 10: DateReceived (MM/DD/YYYY): The date the film was received at the family history center. This field is optional. If your file does not contain this date, the system will use the default, 01/01/1991.
Field 11: Date1stRenewal (MM/DD/YYYY): The first time the film was renewed (if your system tracks this information). This field is optional.
Field 12: Date2ndRenewal (MM/DD/YYYY): The second time the film was renewed (if it is now on extended loan). This field is optional.
Field 13: DateNotifyReceived (MM/DD/YYYY): The date the patron was notified that the film he or she ordered was received. This field is optional.
If you need clarification or additional help Brother Piepgrass has kindly offered his assistance. Contact him at ebpiepgrass@shaw.ca and then share telephone numbers.
Thank you so much for working through this process. I work in the Edmonton Riverbend FHC on Wednesdays (when we previously ordered and returned the films) and we’re trying to understand how everything works now.