combining tables from multiple computers

[larz.welo]

I work for a,nonprofit in rural Indonesia. We do pure water infrastructure with a strong emphasis on surveys and education.

Here’s my problem:
When our staff comes back from the field, they usually have a lot of survey results we’d like to put into Libre Base so the data can be effectively utilized. Our staff usually splits up onto our 4 different computers to input the data. In Access, we could just merge the two tables without struggle, but my staff is really having trouble merging the tables in Libre Base. I was also unable to find a solution after 2 hours prowling Google. We need multiple data inputs, but want only 1 finished product.

Can you step me through this? I haven’t used a database in over a decade and am trying to do this smart.

Larz

[w_whalley]

This seems easiest to me but there are other options.

Prepare the destination table in your base file.

Prepare a LibreOffice spreadsheet on each source computer with the same field names and order as the destination table. If you have an auto-increment primary key field in base, include that column in the spreadsheet, but leave those data cells blank. Enter the data into the spreadsheet files on the source PCs.

When you are ready to merge, copy the spreadsheet files from the source PCs to the destination PC.

Open the base file and select the Tables section.

Open a source spreadsheet. Highlight the data including the column headings to select it. Drag the selected data from the spreadsheet to the base Tables section. When you release the button you should get a Copy Table dialog. Enter the destination table Name at the top. Choose the options Append data and Use first line as column names. Click next.

Verify that the fields in the source table match up with the fields in the destination table. Click create.