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Topic: NBN Exchange Add In

I must admit to being really fed up with this add in. For years it has been unable to handle site data properly (defaulting to location name if there is one even though this is meaningless without the actual location). There's been updates but it still doesn't work. This is the main reason we asked Mike to write us an alternative as an xml query.

The problem now is with the requirements of the Natural England MOA we're probably going to have to use this add in and so Natural England might get poor data.

Graham Hawker
Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre

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Re: NBN Exchange Add In

Are you using the latest version of the add-in? – version 2.3.2, January 2010. The More tab on Help – About ... tells you the version of the add-ins installed. It has 2 site name options: Sample Location Name first and preferred Location Name first but ,as is often the case, the use of the term Location Name is confusing. What the add-in will output is:

Both SITE NAME OPTIONs
If the Sample has a Location but no Location Name, the preferred name for the Location is output
If the Sample doesn’t have a Location but has a Location Name, the Location Name is output

SITE NAME OPTION: Sample Location Name first
If the Sample has a Location and a Location Name, the Location Name is output

SITE NAME OPTION: preferred Location Name first
If the Sample has a Location and a Location Name, the preferred name for the Location is output

Note that:
if the survey event has a Location but the Sample doesn’t, the Location from the event is used instead of the Sample Location
Sample Location and Sample Location Name are not concatenated

I had 2 problems with this add-in. On my Windows 7 laptop, I had to run Recorder 6 as administrator once this sdd-in was installed. Also, the first time I installed it, one of the stored procedures it uses wasn’t updated so I got an error message about the nbn_exchange_basic_update procedure. Uninstalling and reinstalling the add-in cured the problem.

Sally Rankin, JNCC Recorder Approved Expert
E-mail: s.rankin@btinternet.com
Telephone: 01491 578633
Mobile: 07941 207687

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Re: NBN Exchange Add In

Hi Sally

Thanks for the response. I must admit I hadn't spotted the site option or any description of what they provided. I have tested the preferred site option and that does seem to provide a reasonable result if not perfect. Sometime a concatenated name might work better but for now I think we might get away with preferred site.

Graham Hawker
Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre