1 Reply by Richard Wright

  • Richard Wright
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 12-10-2011
  • Posts: 30

Re: Mapmate Import basics

I am about to change my recording from Mapmate to Recorder. Searching the forum, there are lots of topics concerning specific issues with this, but I haven't found out any basic "how to do it" instructions. In the Documentation section of the Recorder site, "Exchanging Data between Recorder 6 and MapMate" is described as "in progress" only. I would appreciate it if someone could just provide some advice on how to start. I believe there is a Mapmate query somewhere which does the basic export of the data, but where can I find it? I did import various lots of data into Recorder 2002 some years ago so I have some memory of the process.

One reason that I am changing is that my own Mapmate database has become corrupted (and I didn't backup recently........) which is an incentive for me to change as I have also become frustrated with some of Mapmate's limitations and lack of development. However, my sync partner does have a "good" copy of all our data so I will need to export it from his Mapmate, which does mean that Recorder and Mapmate will be on different computers. We have about 77,000 records to import and they will go onto an otherwise "empty" new copy of Recorder.

Any help appreciated.

Richard Wright

2 Reply by charliebarnes

  • charliebarnes
  • Veteran
  • Offline
  • From: Greater Lincolnshire
  • Registered: 07-09-2008
  • Posts: 1,396

Re: Mapmate Import basics

Rather than exchange data, I think you want to just to a simple export/import? If you exchange data, you won't be able to edit any of the data you've imported as MapMate is still the "owner", and would have to edit data in MapMate and re-exchange.

This is the MapMate query I use to get a tab delimited file of (all) MapMate records (not sure where it came from?):

SELECT Records.[_guk] AS MapMate_guk, [Taxa\Default].Taxon, [Sites\Default].Name AS Location_name, [Sites\Default].OSGridRef AS Gridref, IIf([Sites\Default].[ViceCounty]>200,'H' & [Sites\Default].[ViceCounty]-200,[Sites\Default].[ViceCounty]) AS Vice_county, IIf([Records].[Quantity]>0,[Records].[Quantity],'Present') & " " & IIf([Records]![*Stage]='0',IIf([Records]![*Sex]<>'u',[TaxonSex]![Sex],'None'),IIf([Records]![*Stage]='1',IIf([Records]![*Sex]<>'u','Adult' & [TaxonSex]![Sex],'Adult'),[TaxonStage]![Stage])) AS Abundance, IIf([Records].[DateTo]-[Records].[Date]<27,Format([Records].[Date],'dd/mm/yyyy'),IIf([Records].[DateTo]-[Records].[Date]>32,Format([Records].[Date],'yyyy'),Format([Records].[Date],'mmmm yyyy'))) AS [Date], Recorders.Name AS Recorder, Recorders_1.Name AS Determiner, Methods.Method, Records.Comment
FROM ((((((Records INNER JOIN [Taxa\Default] ON Records.[*Taxon] = [Taxa\Default].[_guk]) INNER JOIN [Sites\Default] ON Records.[*Site] = [Sites\Default].[_guk]) INNER JOIN Methods ON Records.[*Method] = Methods.[_guk]) INNER JOIN Recorders ON Records.[*Recorder] = Recorders.[_guk]) INNER JOIN TaxonStage ON Records.[*Stage] = TaxonStage.[_guk]) INNER JOIN TaxonSex ON Records.[*Sex] = TaxonSex.[_guk]) INNER JOIN Recorders AS Recorders_1 ON Records.[*Identifier] = Recorders_1.[_guk]
WHERE ((([Sites\Default].OSGridRef) Is Not Null));

This formats the MapMate fields into Recorder-acceptable fields. Then it's just a case of importing the tab delimited file (should be instructions in the help?)

Remember to ignore the mapmate_guk field when importing data into Recorder, or you won't be able to edit any of the data after it's imported.....

Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

charliebarnes's Website

3 Reply by Richard Wright

  • Richard Wright
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 12-10-2011
  • Posts: 30

Re: Mapmate Import basics

Thanks very much for that. I've run the query on Mapmate and the results all look OK. Just the import to deal with now ........................
Richard Wright

4 Reply by sallyrankin

  • sallyrankin
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 07-04-2006
  • Posts: 371

Re: Mapmate Import basics

If you use the MapMate key to generate Recorder keys based on it you won’t be able to edit MapMate records in Recorder 6. To avoid this don’t match the column containing MapMate keys to the column type MapMate Key. Instead, I would match it to the Surveyor’s Ref or other suitable field to make it easier to cross reference records in MapMate and Recorder. If your abundance data has come out of MapMate in the usual way it will probably need to be concatenated. Hopefully, the Help in Recorder 6 will make what you need to do clear for this and a few other fields.

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

5 Reply by Richard Wright

  • Richard Wright
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 12-10-2011
  • Posts: 30

Re: Mapmate Import basics

Sally
The query supplied by Charlie seems to do the concatenation etc and the Abundance column now mostly contains "Present Adult" and the dreaded "0" representing Present in Mapmate has gone. I assume this will now be OK.

One of several reasons why I am changing to Recorder is because I anticipate it will be easier to submit our data to the Gateway. and to update it. Our local BRC said they would do it but failed to realise the Abundance = 0 problem and hence the metadata states "The Warwickshire Coleoptera dataset contains 74,339 beetle records" yet only  4,167 records actually made it onto the Gateway! One would have thought that people paid to deal with biological records locally would have noticed this problem ................... Anyway, as they "don't have time" to deal with this I am going to do it myself.

Richard Wright