Question

I have an excel sheet where in the data looks similar to the table below :

EmployeeName    Manager Name
E1              M1
E2              M2
E3              M3
E4              M1

I need to export this into a database which has two separate table for employee and manager.

Sql tables which I am exporting to has structure like this:

Create Table Manager (Manager_Id int Primary Key Identity(1,1), 
                      ManagerName nvarchar(50))

Create Table Employee (EmployeeID int Primary Key Identity(1,1) ,
                       EmployeeName nvarchar(50), 
                       Manager_Id int) 

ManagerId is a foreign reference in the employee table.

Since I need Manager Table before the Employee table, I successfully imported the manager data first using SQL Server Import and Export wizard.

My next step was to import data into the employee table.This is where the problem comes in.
Now, I want manager Id from a table sitting in the Sql Server database and the employee names from the excel sheet. I though there must be a way in the Import and Export wizard in the Sql Statement option to write a query which can refer to both excel and the sql table but I get an error “This is not a query”

Is there a better way of importing data to multiple tables?

Answer 1

Instead of importing the Employee data to the Employee table, import it into a Temp table on SQL server. Then you will be able to write a query which retrieves the employee name from the Temp table, joins it to the Manager table and then inserts into the real Employee table.