Delete Field Value Using Dedicated Syntax
We often have the need to delete/clear a field when importing. It would be great to have a dedicated syntax that we can map to indicate that the mapped field should be replaced with null.
E.g. if we map {DELETE} it would remove the value in the field in Salesforce that we are updating, leaving it blank.
This would allow blank fields to be ignored, whilst giving users a way to very intentionally delete a fields.
Two examples:
1) We have a file of donor data where invalid/incorrect email addresses and phone numbers have been flagged. We can therefore import this back as {DELETE} to remove this data.
2) Updating addresses. Say a contact has an address with the state/province field populated. We might get a new address in an import file that does not have a state/province. If this is left blank in import, the result will be the new address but with the old state/province. Instead, we would map any blank incoming state/province as {DELETE}.
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