Directory Mate 2003 Help

Directory Mate Importing

Directory Mate was designed as a easy way to add, change, and remove directory information from Microsoft Windows Active Directory.  Using the principals of Exchange 4.0, 5.0 and 5.5 directory importing while making the process simple through the use of a wizard, Directory Mate is easy enough to be used by any one.  Below are some important notes about importing data using Directory Mate 2003.

These functions are:

- Importing Information
- Multi-valued Fields
- Special Characters

 

Importing Information

 

Import files must have a column named "mode".  You must then specify one of the following entries for each line in that column:

 

"Create" - The entry on this line is a new object that should be created. 

 

"Modify" - The entry on this line is an object that is being modified.  The object must already exist in your Active Directory. 

 

"Delete" - The entry on this line is an object that is being deleted.  The object must already exist in your Active Directory.  Objects that are deleted by Directory Mate are put in your "Lost and Found" container that can be found under your domain.  (Example: "CN=LostAndFound,DC=MADSolutions,DC=com")

 

"Move" - The entry on this line is an object that is being moved to another container.  The object must already exist in your Active Directory.   Refer to the section "Moving Users and Other Objects" below.

 

When creating new objects, you must have a column named "distinguishedName".  Each line must have an entry that lists the full distinguished name for the new object.  The format for this entry is "CN=<active directory object name>," plus the distinguished name of the container where you want to create the new object.  For example, if we wanted to create a new user "Richard Smith" in our Users container, we could use the distinguishedName "CN=RSmith,CN=Users,DC=MADSolutions,DC=com" or "CN=Richard Smith,CN=Users,DC=MADSolutions,DC=com".  Do not specify the "objectGUID" column for new objects.  Active Directory will automatically create a GUID for the new object.

 

When modifying or deleting objects, you can specify the object in two different ways.  You can use the "distinguishedName" column and enter the distinguished name for each object or you can use the "objectGUID" column and specify the GUID for each object. 

 

For examples of what distinguished names and GUIDs look like in your directory, try exporting some user objects in your directory with Directory Mate and examine the resulting export file.

 

Directory Mate can import attributes that are string values, number values or boolean values.  Date/time attributes and security information cannot be imported using Directory Mate at this time. To specify a boolean value in a column, use "True", "False", "T", "F", "0" or "1".

 

Note:  If you are using a text editor to create CSV files and not Microsoft Exchange, any values that have a comma in them must have double-quotes put around them.  Example:   Create,"CN=SSmith,CN=Users,DC=MADS1,DC=com",Sally,Smith

 

For more information about using import files for users, user Exchange properties or groups, please refer to the appropriate help file.

 

Multi-valued Fields

 

Some attributes can contain multiple values.  When importing these types of attributes, use the  "%" character to separate the values. 

 

The import wizard step that shows you the columns in your import file also gives you two options when importing attributes with multiple values:

 

"Append import file values to the existing values in multi-valued fields".  When this option is selected, the values in the import file will be added to the files that already exist for that object in the Active Directory.

 

"Overwrite values in multi-valued fields with the import file values".  When this option is selected, the values in the import file will replace the values that already exist for that object in the Active Directory.  There is one exception to this when importing group membership using the "memberOf" column.  Please see the section "Modifying Group Membership" for details.

 

Special Characters

 

To import a return character use "\r\n".  In other words, the "\r\n" can be used in your import files to specify return characters in your data..

 

For example, if we were importing the street address for a user that contained the following:

102 First Street

Suite 207

 

The value would appear in our import file as: "102 First Street\r\nSuite 207"