Revision Date: July 11, 1997

Format Type 2: More complex, smaller transmitted files, no loss of auxiliary data.

Field No.	Field Name	Field Type	Maximum Length	Comments
1	Transaction Command	Alphabetic	1	Add, Change, or Delete. See below.
2	Society Code	Numeric	4	Your Society Code is 9999.
3	Original Last Name	Alphanumeric	40	This is the key to our database for change (C) or delete (D) transactions. Always use the same value you used when you last added or changed this member's record.
4	Original First Name	Alphanumeric	25	See Original Last Name.
5	Changed Last Name	Alphanumeric	40	Change member's original name to the different name in this field. A new member's name would also appear in this field for an add (A) transaction. This field is only used when the Transaction Command is a change (C) or add (A) transaction. For a deletion (D), this field is ignored and should be null (empty).
6	Changed First Name	Alphanumeric	25	See Changed Last Name.
7	Salutation	Alphanumeric	10	This would be Mrs., Ms., Dr., Mr., etc.
8	Address One	Alphanumeric	32	First line of a two-line address. Normally blank, but may contain such data as apartment number, or spouse's and children's name for family memberships.
9	Address Two	Alphanumeric	34	Second line of address. This line contains the address if only one line of street address is required.
10	City Name	Alphanumeric	25	Name of the city.
11	State Abbreviation	Alphanumeric	6	Two letter state abbreviation (e.g., Illinois is IL).
12	Zip Code	Alphanumeric	10	Zip Code: either nnnnn or nnnnn-nnnn. Note that no zip code is better than a wrong five-digit zip code, but the right zip code is better yet. If this is an international address, put the postal code as defined by that country here.
13	Country	Alphanumeric	25	Name of the country for international addresses or blank.
14	Telephone	Alphanumeric	24	Member's telephone number. The preferred form is acn-nnn-nnnn, where acn is the area code. Any form that conveys the telephone number is acceptable.

Each field begins with a double quote, ["], and ends with a double quote. Fields are separated by commas. Records end with a Carriage Return (CR). A Line Feed (LF) can also be present and will be ignored. Blanks are not allowed outside the double quotes, but may appear as necessary in each field. All characters must be printable PC ASCII. The lengths specified do not include the beginning and ending double quote, nor the comma.

A typical record would appear as follows:

"C","9410","Stevens, Jr.","Bert and Janet","Stevens","",""," ","2112 Kingfisher Lane East","","","","","708-398-0562"

Note the null (empty) fields for City, State, Zip and Country. Even though there is nothing in the field, the beginning double quote, ending double quote, and comma still exist in the record. These fields will not be changed in our database. Note Address One that has a single blank in it. Since this field is not null, it replaces the corresponding field in our database, wiping out any data in the Address One field. This is how you clear an existing field in our database.

The Transaction Command field is the field that tells our computer how to handle each member record you send us. If you are adding a new member to the database, this field will contain an "A" for add. All other fields should be filled with the appropriate information except for the Original Last Name and Original First Name fields which are ignored and should be null. The next time you need to change or delete this member's record, you will put the Society Code, Changed Last Name and Changed First Name that you have sent here in the add ("A") record into the Society Code, Original Last Name and Original First Name in the change ("C") or delete ("D") record so we can match it against our database.

In deleting an expired member the Transaction Command field has a "D" in it. For this type of operation, only the Society code, Original Last Name and Original First Name need be filled in. All other fields will be ignored and should contain nulls, but they must appear in the record.

Changing a member's name, address or telephone number requires a "C" in the Transaction Command field. This will tell our computer to find the member in the database with your Society Code, member's Original Last Name, and member's Original First Name and change all the other information in the database so it matches your record. This means that you must transmit the entire Original Last Name and Original First Name (even if you are not changing the name). The remainder of the record contains the changes to the database. Only those fields that are not null will be changed in our database.

This means that a field will appear in the change (C) transaction you are sending only if that field is being changed (excluding the Society Code, Original Last Name and Original First Name which must always appear). Fields that are to be blanked out should have at least one blank in the corresponding field appearing in the change transaction record.

Your update files may be sent to us in two ways. First, you can mail us a PC-compatible diskette. We can read any 5¼-inch or 3½-inch PC-format floppy diskette except the 2.88 MB format. After we have processed your updates, we will mail back your diskettes. The second technique is to send electronic updates to us as a binary file via E-mail to the Executive Secretary. Please do not put your updates in a message, since they will get reformatted by the mail server before we receive them.email

What ever technique you use, please be sure to include a message on what format is being used and whether or not this is a complete replacement. We would prefer the e-mail technique, since we do not need to send diskettes back and forth, but any of these techniques is better than typing in the changes by hand. We thank you in advance for helping to make both our jobs easier.

Return to the ALCor Information Home Page;

Read the more about what an ALCor is including their duties;

Read how ALCors can send in their updates by Electronic Data Transfer Format I;

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