My problem is this:  I have a mature list - about 700 entries and need to input more.  I was thinking if I created an excel spreadsheet that had the same fields I could just cut and paste - but I am unable to do so.  Does anyone have any insight on this?

Thanks

Ursula

Ursula,

I use to do that using the view Edit in Datasheet. Make an Excel Sheet with the same columns as the Datasheet view and then make a copy-paste. If you have some people field or lookup or lists, be sure you are pasting the same name as in the connected list. Anyway, if you have some diferent name, while importig data you'll receive an error of how many fields doesn't imported correctly.

Best regards,

Albert

Generally if you do this one time only, pasting should work in datasheet view.  If you do this more often or on a regular base, then the Business Data List Connector (BDLC) can possibly help. With the BDLC you can connnect a custom SharePoint list to almost any external data source (including Excel) with update (one direction only) directly in the list settings by entering a connection string and a select statement only:

You can use all list features (readonly) without any restriction. Alerts and workflow can start business actions in SharePoint, if external data changes. Just try it out, the Shareware version is free:

http://www.layer2.de/en/products/pages/sharepoint-business-data-list-connector.aspx

 Cheers, Frank