Format Type 1: Less complex, larger transmitted files. Also for complete replacement transmissions.

Revision Date: July 11, 1997
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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	Member's Last Name	Alphanumeric	40	This is the key to our database. Always use the same value you used when you last added or changed this member's record.
4	Member's First Name	Alphanumeric	25	See Member's Last Name.
5	Salutation	Alphanumeric	10	This would be Mrs., Ms., Dr., Mr., etc.
6	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.
7	Address Two	Alphanumeric	34	Second line of address. This line contains the address if only one line of address is required.
8	City Name	Alphanumeric	25	Name of the city.
9	State Abbreviation	Alphanumeric	6	Two letter state abbreviation (e.g., Illinois is IL).
10	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.
11	Country	Alphanumeric	25	Name of the country for international addresses or blank.
12	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. Please include the area code.

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:

"A","9410","Stevens, Jr.","Bert and Janet","Mr.","", "2112 Kingfisher Lane East","Rolling Meadows","IL","60008","","708-398-0562"

Note the null (empty) fields for address one and country. Even though there is nothing in the field, the beginning double quote, ending double quote, and comma still exist in the record.

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 or sending a complete replacement, this field will contain an "A" for add. All other fields in that record should be filled with the appropriate information. Note that the Society Code, Last Name and First Name will be used in the future to identify this member for future changes or deletion.

In deleting an expired member the Transaction Command field has a "D" in it. For this type of operation, only the Society code, Last Name and First Name need be filled in. All other fields will be ignored and may contain anything you wish, but they must appear in the record, even if they are just null fields.

Changing a member's 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 Last Name, and member's First Name and change all the other information in the database so it matches your record. This means that you must transmit the all the fields in the record as you want them to appear in our database. Each field you send us (with the exception of the Society Code, Last Name, and First Name) will replace the corresponding field in our database. Hence you must send us the all the address and telephone number fields to us if you are changing anything for that member in the database.

Since we use the Society Code, Last Name, and First Name to identify the record you are sending us, you cannot use the change (C) Transaction Command to change a member's name. You must first send us a deletion (D) record for the original name, and then send us an add (A) to place the new name (along with the address and telephone number) back into the database. While this method does update the database, if there is any other information in the database for that member (the do-not-send-Reflector flag, no advertising, or office-being-held-in-the-society) will be lost. If you are sending us a complete replacement for your society, we will make every attempt to retain this information and the vast majority of the time no information will be lost. There is no solution to this problem except to use Format 2.

In addition to updating your society's information in the database, you can completely replace it. This will save you the work of keeping track of the changes that you make to your membership list. When you are ready to send your information, convert your membership list into a series of Format I "A" (add) records, one for each member. Send us the complete file. We will remove your old entries from the database and then substitute your new entries in their place. Be sure to advise us that the file is a complete Format I replacement file, so we will properly apply it to the database.

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.

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