Bringing years of Excel registers onto one record
How to import historical ABC and rescue registers without losing where each row came from.
Most organisations already have years of work in spreadsheets: drive sheets, rescue logs, vaccination lists. That history is valuable, and it is also the least checked data you have.
Keep the source
Import every row as it is, with the file and row it came from. Do not clean it on the way in. StrayPaw labels imported rows as historical until a person checks them, so a figure from an old sheet is never presented as verified work.
Map columns, not values
- Dog number becomes the StrayPaw ID
- Area or locality becomes the ward
- Operation date becomes the sterilisation date
- Free text stays as a note
Then let Kaju find the duplicates
The same dog often appears in two sheets under two spellings. Kaju compares coat, sex, notch and place, and lists likely duplicates for a person to merge.