It should be possible to integrate Inventory by exporting from one DB and importing to another. The imported Inventory would have different Inventory Item #s, but I think if you do the prep on things like inventory categories, it ought to work.

I speak with some confidence about the Inventory merging because I've recently been doing that kind of thing.

Facilities to export and import Inventory records, auction lots, and invoice data exist. See Tools/Database Tools/Export and /Import.

Facilities to export but not import Buyer Data and some other stuff exist.

If you have enough records to justify the development effort, a macro generator like Auto Hot Key might be able to read the exported data and key it in to AW2K. This is really cool, but making it work right is real work.

Personally, if we're talking about merging a 100 records into a DB, I'd just do it by hand. 1,000 or more, and I'd work on an automated approach. In between, your call. Keep in mind that you can hire someone to key stuff in. You could also choose to let the old data run down in an existing database and do all new stuff in the consolidated machine, thus gradually "moving" the database.

This is no toy effort. You can do it, but you'll have to plan, test ideas, take notes, and be careful. It would be useful to set up an entirely separate machine for the project so that day-to-day activities aren't affected. That project machine could end up being the server for the consolidated database.

I can't stress this highly enough--make copies of all the databases, especially the one to be the consolidated one, and work on those copies. Even if everything works, you'll make a few missteps along the way. If it doesn't work, you want the easiest possible way out of it.

If it sounds like I'm overstating the situation ("Those pros think everything is tough."), I'm not. I know what I'm talking about, having done this sort of thing right a couple of times and wrong a few more. In one case, merging 45,000 large and complicated records into an existing 2.5 million record database required 7 full-time weeks of preparation for the run. And this was a situation where I was considerably more efficient than I would have been in most corporations, so the time reflects real work being done, not coping with Dilbert's pals.


Something you will want to look into if the 3 existing databases implement eBay Stores. The AW2K help says "Note: The Store Category list is shared by all Auction Profiles".

Good luck, and keep us posted on this,
Ned