Tools – Export Management will export unchecked observations and observations flagged as Failed/Pending Verification but not invalid items. Tools – Export Data doesn’t (this option is only available when something like a survey has been selected for export). Either will export confidential observations provided a systems manager has ticked the ‘Enable export of confidential occurrences’ option on the General tab in Tools – Options. If you search for export in the help and select Export Management you will find the documentation on creating the filters for this export type, etc. Invalid items need to be corrected before exporting data – search for validation in the help and select validating data – for details of how to locate invalid items.

If your filter lists surveys or taxonomic groups the export will only include the locations, names and documents linked to the observations exported. However, on the Options tab for filter creation there is a box you can tick to include all individuals and organisations and another to include all locations that match the filter’s bounding box. I haven’t tested these so I suggest you check the export to ensure that it has exported everything you require. If it doesn’t you could export them using a rucksack – see Export rucksack in the help. If your filter doesn’t list surveys or taxonomic groups the export is supposed to work across the whole database but I am not sure whether that means all surveys, locations, names and documents or just all surveys. I suspect the latter. There is no tick box for documents so you would need to use a rucksack to export unused documents.

Please take care when transferring custody as there are problems associated with this. Until they are corrected, users are strongly advised to backup their database before reassigning custody so that they can restore the backup if the export fails or they find they are no longer able to edit data. The problems are documented in Mantis 343 in Selected Mantis Issues 120229.doc, one of the documents referred to in http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?pid=11684#p11684 , my post about changes and fixes to be considered for inclusion in v6.18. Please let us know if you consider this a priority for v6.18. Mantis is the system we use for logging bugs and suggestions for changes.