1 Reply by nmrs

  • nmrs
  • Veteran
  • Offline
  • From: London
  • Registered: 22-11-2006
  • Posts: 382

Re: [XML Report] Browse all Records for [taxon] for import into Mapmate

Hi all,

Hopefully some of you out there may be able to make use of or suggest improvements to a report I've uploaded today to the forum for general use. The report basically outputs a species list into the MapMate Import Specification - well, there is an extra 'Confidential' column but this can easily be deleted and a couple of other very minor manual changes which are quite obvious to those who know MapMate!

I'd be delighted if anyone can use this report to their advantage and/or make improvements to the report for everyone's benefit.

Feel free to make any changes as necessary to suit your needs.

Feedback via the forum for all to see.

Best wishes,
Les.

Les Evans-Hill
Senior Data Officer, National Moth Recording Scheme

nmrs's Website

2 Reply by charlesroper

  • charlesroper
  • charlesroper
  • Digital Development Manager
  • Offline
  • From: Field Studies Council
  • Registered: 26-03-2006
  • Posts: 906

Re: [XML Report] Browse all Records for [taxon] for import into Mapmate

Thanks Les, I'll check it out.

Charles Roper
Digital Development Manager | Field Studies Council
http://www.field-studies-council.org | https://twitter.com/charlesroper | https://twitter.com/fsc_digital

charlesroper's Website

3 Reply by Stuart

  • Stuart
  • Guest

Re: [XML Report] Browse all Records for [taxon] for import into Mapmate

I too have put together SQL which will pump stuff out of Recorder (2002 in my case) in the tab-delimited text file format required for import by Mapmate. It is easy enough to do and works fine. The big problem is that there is no mechanism to transfer the unique NBN keys so that they are used or recognised in some way by MapMate!

The Recorder Importer DOES handle this and it means that records imported from MapMate get a key derived from MapMate's guk. If the record gets imported into Recorder more than once, Recorder will identify it as duplicate and allow you to update the Recorder copy with any changes made in the MapMate original. Also, because it is stored under a SiteID derived from the MapMate CUK, Recorder won't allow you to change it. This mechanism isn't perfect, but it does work pretty well.

What is needed is an equivalent mechanism in the Recorder to MapMate direction and this is something only Teknica Ltd. can do!

Without this, if stuff is pumped out of Recorder into MapMate it essentially becomes new, independent records and if, in due course, it makes its way back to Recorder, it will just be duplicated. Also, if changes are subsequently made to the original observation in Recorder, there is no automated way to update the MapMate copy. Finally, because MapMate will simply assign new keys to the records on import, that copy of MapMate will now "own" the record and will allow  them to be changed.

So, yes, the mechanism that Les suggests works fine to get data from Recorder into MapMate, but you do need to think about the data-flow management issues it will create.

4 Reply by nmrs

  • nmrs
  • Veteran
  • Offline
  • From: London
  • Registered: 22-11-2006
  • Posts: 382

Re: [XML Report] Browse all Records for [taxon] for import into Mapmate

Hi Stuart,

Quite right, I understand and agree with your post. I didn't make it clear that this report isn't expected to export NBN Keys etc for true sync with MapMate. It is just a tool to export data in the MapMate format (or thereabouts) - data-flow management wasn't a consideration for this report design.

I use a copy of MapMate purely for receiving datasets from recorders and for creating individual species atlases - I then refresh records.mdb, sites.mdb and references.mdb to await either a new dataset to work on or a new species atlas.

Best wishes,
Les.

Les Evans-Hill
Senior Data Officer, National Moth Recording Scheme

nmrs's Website