You can append an imported database table to a table in Ability. This is useful if you want to append, say, an address table to an address table. The two tables should therefore have similar contents and the fields that are to be matched should be of the same data type (for instance, it wouldn’t make sense to append a character field to a numeric field).
To append the imported table (the Source table) you should first open the table in Ability that you want to append to (the Destination table), and then follow these steps:
Select Import from the File menu. The "Import" dialog is opened.
In the Data Source box, select the database type from which you want to import. Note that the Append to current table box is switched on. Click on OK.
In the "Open" dialog, use the Look in box to locate the source database and place it in the File name box. Click on Open to open the "Import" dialog.
In the Objects box, select the table you want to import and then click on OK.
The "Field Correspondence" dialog is opened. The Source table fields and Destination table fields boxes list all the fields in the two tables. The Current correspondences among the fields box displays, on the left, all the fields in the source table and, on the right, any matches Ability has been able to make between the tables. You can add and delete matches as follows:
To remove a match, select that line and click on Delete.
To make a match select the fields to be matched in the Source table fields and Destination table fields boxes respectively, and then click on Add. The matched fields are linked in the Current correspondences among the fields box. If you attempt to match fields with incompatible data types, an error message will be displayed and the match will not go ahead.
Once you have created the appropriate matches, click on OK to close the dialog and return to the destination table.
Records will be appended to your table from the imported source table, with values shown in the appropriate match fields.