Just a plea for a little effort to be devoted to making the Import Wizard operate a little more transparently.

In order to get data into Recorder it is necessary to follow a large number of rules, which are pretty comprehensively listed in the help file. I suspect however, that like me, many users will be unable to remember all of these  rules all the time and thus will waste huge amounts of time fruitlesly searching for errors in the import data which do not exist. It would be relatively simple to idiot proof the wizard by including some error messages to explain why the import has failed.

Todays instance is a case in point. A colleague tried to import a small dataset (80 odd records, all at the same location, by the same recorder, but with various dates). Each time she tried, she got as far as the column selection screen, made the selection and then clicked the Validate Columns button. No errors were reported, but the Next button remained inactive. No further action could be taken.

Having pared the dataset down in a dozen different ways, I finally returned to the help file and buried in the text I find the rule "A location must always be accompanied by a grid reference" We had no grid ref column, problem solved.

While I understand the purpose of this rule (since the grid ref is used to validate the record), this is purely for the convenience of the programmers and does not make life easier for the user in any way. At this stage we are certain that the records belong at the specified location, but we do not know the precise grid reference, they are merely somewhere within the site (or location).

Adding any valid grid ref which falls within the grid squares associated with the location will satisfy the rule, but will appear, at a later date, to be spurious accuracy. If any grid ref must be assigned to the records (which I dispute), it has to be the spatial ref of the site, which again is spurious accuracy, but at least can be detected by checking the record gr against the site gr.

So please can the wizard be modified so that, on detecting this situation (a location field but no grid ref field), recorder asks the user "Would you like to use the site spatial ref?". If the user answers no, then the import can be aborted, if yes, job done.

I know there are several similar examples in the import wizard, but this is the one which has wasted an hour and a half of my time today.