1 Reply by DaveSlade

  • DaveSlade
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Re: Import Wizard - Abundance data = -1

I recently imported a large number of record via the ADO connection to an Access 97 database. The import appeared to run without any problems, but I have now found that the abundance data was not imported, and instead all the abundances have been set to -1. I now have the fun task of find the offending records (I didn't save the import filter) and correct them. Only around 9000 of them.

Is this a bug or have I misused the import wizard somehow?

Dave Slade
Senior IT & Records Officer,
15 Talbot Road, Talbot Green, Pontyclun, CF72 8AD
www.sewbrec.org.uk, www.sewbrecord.org.uk

2 Reply by Gordon Barker

  • Gordon Barker
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Re: Import Wizard - Abundance data = -1

Could this be an issue with the data type - possibly importing a text field into one that was expecting numeric values?

To find them again, Mike posted a xml query that helps find records entered after a certain date.

Gordon

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust

3 Reply by Paul Leonard

  • Paul Leonard
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  • From: Rotherham BRC
  • Registered: 22-01-2010
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Re: Import Wizard - Abundance data = -1

Hi Dave,

I have experienced a similar issue when importing datasets via Excel spreadsheet whereby some of the abundance data was completely ignored whilst other was imported. This has happened a number of times but, thankfully I always keep the import filters. It still doesn't alter the fact that I have had to go through the imported records checking and entering manually all of the missing abundance attributes! This 'bug' or whatever you want to call it doesn't raise its head on a predictable basis which means that time has to be wasted checking through to see whether all has been imported OK. Not sure about Gordon's comment but will check on this next time it occurs. Glad to see its not just me on the receiving end of this - any ideas anyone?

Cheers,

Paul

Biological Records Officer
Rotherham MBC
Rotherham Biological Records Centre

4 Reply by DaveSlade

  • DaveSlade
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Re: Import Wizard - Abundance data = -1

Gordon,
TAXON_OCCURRENCE_DATA.DATA is a text field (max length 20), as was the source of the abundance data in the access database (max length 50). Although the max field size in each case is different none of the source data was imported regardless of the length of the string so I  can't see how that be relevant.

The source dataset did contain some null values. Could this have messed up the whole import? And why assign a value -1 rather than just leave it blank?

Anyway. I've found the records in question in Access and am working through correcting them - around 8000 could be done relatively easily as there was sufficient uniqueness in the dataset to find them. The remaining 600 or so are too similar to do any way other than manually.

At least it's not just me!

Dave Slade
Senior IT & Records Officer,
15 Talbot Road, Talbot Green, Pontyclun, CF72 8AD
www.sewbrec.org.uk, www.sewbrecord.org.uk

5 Reply by Gordon Barker

  • Gordon Barker
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Re: Import Wizard - Abundance data = -1

Not sure really, was just a suggestion because -1 is the default value in some systems for an error, which I have seen because of a text import to a numeric field, but I don't know enough about the inner workings of Recorder to know whether this could be the case here.

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust