OFFICE EXPRESS HELP ASSISTANT

Professional Software for Professionals

IMPORTANT

Microsoft no longer supports older versions of the Paradox, JET, dbBase databases. If you have software that uses one of these databases you will need to use OFfice Express for XP to import your data. If you dont have OE XP, you can contact our tech support to have your database imported.

OFFICE EXPRESS FOR WIN 7 AND ABOVE NO LONGER SUPPORTS IMPORTING DATA FROM THESE OLDER DATABASES.

 

Importing Data into Office Express

If you are currently using another industry software program and would like to import your existing data into Office Express this section is for you.

Office Express can import data from other programs directly into Office Express. Importing existing data will eliminate you from having to retype and reenter your customer data.

NOTE: You can import more than once into Office Express. You would do this if you are still using your old program while you are learning Office Express. Import your data into Office Express to get going, use and learn the features and continue using you old program. When you feel comfortable to switch completely to Office Express, re-import your data and you'll have the most recent data from your old program.

The list of programs that Office Express can import from keeps growing. As of this writing Office Express can import from:

  • Classic Clip for Windows
  • Millie for DOS
  • Millie for Windows
  • Accountrix

To see if other import modules have been added:

  1. From the Office Express Main menu, select the Data option
  2. select the Import Data from Another Database... option.
  3. a dialog box will appear, if the program you are using is listed, you will be able to import your data.

IMPORTING DATA

If your current program is listed in the Import dialog box as described above simply click on the Program you use and click the OK button.

Office Express will make sure you want to continue with the import, click OK.

The next question Office Express will ask you is if you want any existing data in Office Express to be deleted. In most cases you would answer Yes. You wouldn't want to delete the data in Office Express if  you have been entering data into Office Express that you want to keep and thus the import will "merge" the Office Express data with the data from the old program.

NOTE: At this point if you receive an error message that says a driver is not found or a driver is missing see the troubleshooting section below.

NOTE: The time it takes to import the data depends on the number of customers and the number of years of data Office Express needs to import. You can roughly figure between 8-10 minutes per year of data for an average or 200 customers. For example, if you have two hundred customers and five years of data, expect the import to take approx. 40-50 minutes.

Once the import begins, unless Office Express finds errors in the database from the old program, the import will be hands free!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because in some cases the import process can be a bit lengthy, you might need to move the mouse or press a key once in a while if your computer is setup to go into hibernate mode after a period of time.

Once the import has been completed, you can begin using Office Express as if you've been using it for years.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR MILLIE USERS

Without getting into all the gory details, Office Express does it best to resolve date issues with the Paradox engine from the nineteen nineties. In some cases Office Express uses an algorithm to correctly determine some dates for the transactions and invoices stored in Millie.

TROUBLESHOOTING

If you get an ODBC Paradox driver missing or not found error message

If you are importing from any Millie version or Accountrix (Millie in disguise) these programs use the Paradox Database Engine. The driver for this engine comes with Windows and should already installed on your computer on your hard drive. Microsoft requires that you configure the driver using the Microsoft's ODBC Administrative Tool.

The following steps will show you how to setup the Paradox driver so you can import your data:

  • from Windows desktop, click the Start button
  • click Control Panel
  • click Administrative Tools
  • click Data Sources (ODBC)
  • click the System DSN tab at the top of the dialog box.
  • a list of already configured drives will be displayed. click the Add button.
  • a list will be displayed of all available drivers. Select the driver that reads exactly
    Microsoft Paradox Driver (*.db) and click Finish. If there are no drivers listed see the topic below.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are a few Paradox drivers, DO NOT select- Driver do Paradox Driver or Microsoft Paradox-Treiber (*.db)

  • a dialog box will be displayed: enter the following
  • in the Data Source Name field type Paradox
  • click OK
  • you will be back to the ODBC Data Source Administrator, click OK.

You should now be able to import into Office Express.

 

There are no drivers listed in the Drivers tab of the ODBC Data Source Administrative Tool

 If when you go to the Drivers tab in the ODBC Administrative Tool there are no drivers listed you will need to do the following:

  1. close the ODBC Administrative Tool
  2. click Start, then Run
  3. type COMMAND and press Enter or click OK
  4. type CD\WINNT and press Enter
  5. type DEL odbcinst.ini and press Enter
  6. type CD SYSTEM32 and press Enter
  7. you should now have a \WINNT\SYSTEM32 prompt
  8. type odbcconf /F odbcconf.rsp and press Enter
  9. type Exit and press Enter
  10. reopen the ODBC Administrative Tool, the drivers should now be listed.