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Topic: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hi everyone - wondering if someone could please help with a small query.

I've come across a survey in which previous samples look to have been imported incorrectly. The raw data for the survey only includes a list of species names and the years in which those species were recorded with no count data, i.e. how many of that moth species were seen in that year. Yet on Recorder each Taxon Occurrence has been imported with a count of '1, Present, (Exact)' which could be misleading in later reports.

I would like to change each occurrence to only Present/P without a count of 1, but there are too many Taxon Occurrences to go through on Recorder and manually do this for each occurrence. Is there a way to update all of the counts in a sample at once, or will the best way just have to be exporting all the data, editing and then re-importing it?

Thanks in advance,

Chloe

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hi All

I'd be interested to hear if there is any sort of consensus on how to handle the abundance data for these types of 'records'? - I try to avoid summary data and get the actual records, but of course that's not always possible. I use 1 Presence where there is no abundance data, as in my mind this makes the most sense, but perhaps it becomes misleading with the count (guess I'm not all that clear on how the zero-count flag works with 0 or blank counts).  What do others do?

Chloe, do you either have the data on it's own in a single survey (or have some other thing that will uniquely identify it), or have .ref files from the imports?  If so you could update fairly easily with a query or batch file.  Or use an export of e.g. event keys using the export wizard if you need to use a more complicated set of conditions, which then could be used for the query/batch update.

Cheers,
Andy.

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hi Chloe

As Andy says the change can be done with a batch update. What needs to be done will depend on how easy it is to identify the records. Let me know the situation and I will see what I can do to provide the update.

I think most users would not record any abundance in these situations, on the assumption that if the record is not zero abundance then it must be present. The zero abundance flag is set to true if all the abundances counts for a record are zero.

With all imports it is s good idea to keep the .ref file. This makes it much easier to deal with this sort of situation.

Mike Weideli

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Ok, maybe I'll be doing some updating myself then :-)

On which note, for Chloe, if nothing better available could just use the 1 Present to target the update (assuming that if this combination occurs elsewhere it should be changed to just Present).

Cheers,
A.

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hello Mike and Andy,

Thank you very much for getting back to me so quickly on this - apologies for my delay in replying.

Ah, recording no abundance for this data as you suggest Mike sounds like a very good idea - in this case removing the count of 1 from each Taxon Occurrence leaving just the species name etc. I will do this in future to keep things consistent.

I will try to find an identifier/.ref file for the records and let you know what it is as soon as possible. If you were able to update them for me as you say that would be fantastic thank you. 

Thanks once again,

Chloe

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

If you can find the ref file, there are other option. I can easily remove all abundances marked 1 Present, but this may remove records you would like to keep. An option will be to produce  report with all the 1 Present records, including the date of import etc. You can then decide which ones you want to remove.

Mike Weideli

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hi Mike,

I've searched through our files and unfortunately it doesn't look like a .ref file was saved for this entry.

I've put together a report as an .xlsx file including all the '1 Present' records that need to be changed. If this is the kind of report you would need in order to update the records, then I can forward it on to you. If there is any vital information that I've missed out from the report then please do let me know and I'll update it for you/make the report as a different file type.

Thank you very much for all your help with this,

Chloe

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

It needs to be saved as csv file somewhere. I don't need the file, just the name of the column which holds the key (Taxon_Occurrence_key ?), but you can send the file to be sure. Did you want the records changed or deleted ?.

Mike Weideli

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hi Mike,

The report of selected records has been converted to .csv. The key column is 'Obs Key', if that is what you were looking for?

Could I please have the records changed as we discussed earlier? All these taxon occurrence records listed currently have a Taxon Abundance Count of 1. But I would like to remove the count measurement, leaving only the species with no abundance data. To show that the species were present at this time but not how many there were.

Thanks again,

Chloe

Post's attachments

Moth Abundance to Change - CB.csv 84.83 kb, 1 downloads since 2016-10-31 

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Attached is the batch update plus a slightly revised version of your csv file - I have only removed the space in the heading of 'Obs Key' so it is 'ObsKey'. Save the csv file  somewhere easy to get to.

With R6 closed copy the batch update file into your Recorder 6 Batch Update folder. Open R6 and go to Tools/Run Batch Updates. Under the TempUpdate menu you will find a single Batch Update. Open and run this.  You will be prompted to specify (browse for)  a csv file (the one attached). The Batch Update should then run and remove the required measurements.

Please take a back up before running this and make sure everything is Ok before proceeding with any further work. I suggest that if all is Ok you deleted the Batch update file.

For more information on batch updates see http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=6266

Post's attachments

Moth Abundance to Change - CB.csv 84.83 kb, 4 downloads since 2016-10-31 

TempUpdate.xml 600 b, 4 downloads since 2016-10-31 

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Mike Weideli

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Re: Mass updating all count measurements in a sample

Hi Mike,

That is fantastic. I will try running the batch update as instructed.

Thank you very much for your time helping me with this!

Chloe