Importing List Data to a Module - Matching by Name or Code?

Question

As a best practice, should you match by name or code when importing list data to a module?

PrevContributor · Accepted Answer

When importing data to a module, matching by code can often eliminate issues arising from label name changes or errors.

For example, you may be importing to an Employee Details module that contains a List of thousands of employee names. With a very large import file, which may have been collected from several different budget managers or HR sources, there is a possibility of name misspellings or perhaps name changes if an employee get married and changes their last name.

To avoid this issue, the Employee List (on the Settings tab) should have the Code attribute populated. Once the Code has been set for each employee, your import file for the Employee Details module would no longer need all of the Names and you could match by Code when running the Import.

This could apply for any other List that is being imported, given that the list has associated code numbers.