About Data Connection

Data Connection Exports

During an export of a tax return locator, Data Connection exports the value of every area, screen, and field defined in the corresponding tax application Build report data dictionary, as long as the data field is populated by active data (that is, a data value that is not a constant or a carried value).

Data elements classified as Organizer, Tax Forms, and Workpapers are enabled for Data Connection exports.

Data Connection Imports

For imports, the user defines the form and field name combinations and associated data field values in the import file, which is processed record-by-record against the appropriate tax application Build report data dictionary.

If the form and field name combination in the import record is located in the tax application Build report, the associated data field value is inserted into the corresponding area, screen, and field location in the tax return database. If the form and field name combination in the import record is not located in the tax application Build report data dictionary, the import file data field value is ignored.

Only Organizer data is imported. Data elements classified as Tax Forms and Workpapers are not imported, even if corresponding form and field name combinations exist in the tax application data dictionary.

While constants and carried values are not exported, data values can be imported into the tax return locator data fields populated by constants and carried values. Imports of this type result in an override symbol being displayed in the Organizer screen. The color of the override symbol resulting from a Data Connection import is consistent with that resulting from the manual keyboard entry of an override value.

The import size limit depends on the size of the return and the size of the import file. The larger a return is, the smaller the import file needs to be. For very large returns, it is advised to break up the import into multiple smaller import files.

To reduce size, if you are using an export file as a starting point for the import file, remove the T and/or W data record lines since those are export only lines (there is no reason to have them in an import file).

Import/Export/dc_specs_gst_1.htm/TY2021

Last Modified: 02/23/2021

Last System Build: 10/18/2022