Updating Cases with Excel issue after archiving cases

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1

Hi

I used to the "Import Cases from Excel" feature to update some case properties that were not saved, but were collected and available on the form submission.

I managed to update the the missing information by using the steps on the help site and everything worked fine. All the missing data was now appearing on the reports and case exports.

However, after we ran some integrity checks, we had to archive a few of the cases. In order to archive some of the cases, I had to archive the "system form" first and then the corresponding form/s. I'm assuming the "system form" is the Case update using excel that I had done.

Doing this removed all the case properties that I had updated using the the import feature. I would have thought that archiving one specific case should only affect that case itself but it seems like it undo's all the case property updates for all affected cases. Is there a workaround this??

I even tried renaming the way the Case Name is stored to be unique rather than the facility name (incase the case update uses the case name), but even this didn't work.

Please assist. Thank you!

2

Hi, you are correct, the case importer effect case changes via a system form. Depending on how big your case import is, there might be several forms; it saves in chunks - 100 cases per form. There isn't a way to control this besides doing separate imports. If you view the system forms, you can click on the "Case Changes" tab to see which cases are have been created or modified by a given form.

In the CommCare mental model, forms are actions that affect cases. Cases cannot be modified except via forms. Archiving forms is made possible to revert accidental actions, but archiving cases directly isn't possible. This does sound frustrating in the circumstances you describe. I think the options you have are:

  • Archive the system forms and redo the imports with only the valid cases
  • Close the invalid cases
  • Reassign the invalid cases to a dummy user to sort of hide them
  • Submit new forms to amend the invalid cases
3

Hi @Ethan_Soergel

Thank you for the feedback.

I think I will go ahead with redoing the imports for only the valid cases and also close the invalid cases. Thank you!