Import Task

Privilege Needed: Administrator or Project Manager

This feature allows Administrators and Project Managers to import 'Task' information into the Unanet system.  

Within one task import file, an Administrator can import task data for one to many projects, across multiple organizations if desired.  The Project Manager version of the import restricts the importing of task data to the specific org/project the Project Manager is accessing the task import on.

This import can be used to either import new tasks, or, provided that your task naming convention is unique within each task level, you can update existing tasks in the Unanet system. 

To import Project level information, see the Project Import help. 

This import can be used to assign specific users to a project.  If you would like to do more than simply assign users to the project (e.g. specify labor category, rate overrides, etc.), you could utilize the Assignment Import as well.

The table below shows all the fields that can be imported for tasks. 

  Field Name Required/Description
1 Organization Code ALWAYS REQUIRED.  This code uniquely identifies the Organization to which this Task's project belongs.  If the Organization you are trying to import does not already exist in the database, the entire record will not be imported.  You will see the message: The organization "..." does not exist.  Line....
2 Project Code ALWAYS REQUIRED. This project code identifies the project to which this Task belongs.  The project code is unique within an Organization.  That is, an Organization can not have two projects with the same Project Code.  Different Organizations, however, can have projects with the same Project Code.  This is the code that appears on most screens and reports.  If the Project you are trying to import does not already exist in the database, the entire record will not be imported.  You will see the message: The project "..." does not exist.  Line....
3 Task Name ALWAYS REQUIRED.  This task name should be unique at the same level under a project.  If a task is not a top-level task, you must include a comma separated list of each task starting at the top level down.  The following is an example of a valid task tree and how you would reference each task using this import.
  
Task Tree Access String
1. Car Repair "Car Repair"
1.1 Tires "Car Repair,Tires"
1.2 Paint "Car Repair,Paint"
1.2.1 Prep work "Car Repair,Paint,Prep work"
1.2.2 Patching "Car Repair,Paint,Patching"
1.3 Engine "Car Repair,Engine"
1.3.1 Tune-up "Car Repair,Engine,Tune-up"
1.3.1 Rebuild "Car Repair,Engine,Rebuild"

*See the EXCEL NOTE regarding the use of double quotes below.

4 Active Identifies whether this task is open (active) or closed (not active).  The imported value can be Y or N. If the field is blank or the letter is not Y or N, the default value will be 'Y'.
5 Original Start Date The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd", "MM/dd/yyyy" or "MM/dd/yy".   Any trailing values --such as a time component will be ignored (e.g. "12/31/2001 08:24 AM"  -- the "08:24 AM" would be ignored). This field can be blank.  A value of "NA" in this field will be ignored (resulting in no error or warning).
6 Original End Date The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd", "MM/dd/yyyy" or "MM/dd/yy". Any trailing values --such as a time component will be ignored (e.g. "12/31/2001 08:24 AM"  -- the "08:24 AM" would be ignored). This field can be blank.  A value of "NA" in this field will be ignored (resulting in no error or warning).
7 Revised Start Date The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd", "MM/dd/yyyy" or "MM/dd/yy". Any trailing values --such as a time component will be ignored (e.g. "12/31/2001 08:24 AM"  -- the "08:24 AM" would be ignored). This field can be blank.  A value of "NA" in this field will be ignored (resulting in no error or warning).
8 Revised End Date The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd", "MM/dd/yyyy" or "MM/dd/yy". Any trailing values --such as a time component will be ignored (e.g. "12/31/2001 08:24 AM"  -- the "08:24 AM" would be ignored). This field can be blank.  A value of "NA" in this field will be ignored (resulting in no error or warning).
9 Completed Date The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd", "MM/dd/yyyy" or "MM/dd/yy". Any trailing values --such as a time component will be ignored (e.g. "12/31/2001 08:24 AM"  -- the "08:24 AM" would be ignored). This field can be blank.  A value of "NA" in this field will be ignored (resulting in no error or warning).
10 Status This field can be used to store a task status.  This field can store up to 50 characters and it can be left blank.
11 Output This field can be used to store a task output.  This field can store up to 50 characters and it can be left blank.
12 Account Code This field can be used to store an account code (e.g. a GL account code associated with this task). This field can be blank.
13 Budgeted Hours Total budgeted hours for this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.  Any trailing values -- such as a text string "hrs" will be ignored.
14 Estimated Hours to Complete Estimate of hours required to complete this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.  Any trailing values -- such as a text string "hrs" will be ignored.
15 Projected Total Hours Total hours expected for this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.  Any trailing values -- such as a text string "hrs" will be ignored.
16 Budgeted Labor Dollars Total labor dollars budgeted for this task.  This field can be blank or must be numeric.
17 Estimated Labor Dollars to Complete Estimate of labor dollars required to complete this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.
18 Projected Total Labor Dollars Total labor dollars expected for this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.
19 Budgeted Expense Dollars Total expense dollars budgeted for this task.  This field can be blank or must be numeric.
20 Estimated Expense Dollars to Complete Estimate of expense dollars required to complete this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.
21 Projected Total Expense Dollars Total expense dollars expected for this task. This field can be blank or must be numeric.
22 Assigned People This field can contain one to many People (identified by their Unanet USERNAME).  If multiple people are listed, they must be separated by commas and contained within double quotes.  (e.g.  Field30,"user1,user2,user3"). This field is used to assign a person(s) to a particular task -- This field can be left blank.

If importing information to an existing task, this field will be ignored if blank (that is -- no change will occur).  If this field contains any people, all existing assigned people will be replaced by the new list included in the import.

If the first value in the list of assigned people is !APPEND!, the names following this tag will be appended to the existing values.  The complete contents of this field are expected to look as follows:

,"!APPEND!,USERNAME1,USERNAME2,USERNAME3",

If the first value in the list of assigned people is !DELETE!, all assignments for that task will be "unassigned" or deleted.  

The usernames listed in this filed must be valid unanet users, otherwise an error message will be produced.

CAUTION: If you are importing task information into an existing project that has assigned people (at the task level), any associated assignment overrides (e.g. bill rate override, cost rate override, etc) will be removed if that users name appears in this listing.  Consider either using the !APPEND! feature noted above -- or leaving this field blank.

*See the EXCEL NOTE regarding the use of double quotes below.
23 User Defined 1 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
24 User Defined 2 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
25 User Defined 3 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
26 User Defined 4 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
27 User Defined 5 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
28 User Defined 6 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
29 User Defined 7 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
30 User Defined 8 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
31 User Defined 9 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 
32 User Defined 10 This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. 

Import File Format

The file to import must be saved in a comma delimited format.   The fields can be enclosed in double quotes -- which would be particularly necessary should the data being imported contain commas.

Examples:

Other file format requirements:

You can create the comma delimited import file with any number of tools.  For those interested in using an Excel spreadsheet to create the file, you can click here to download an Excel Template with predefined headers and required fields. 

EXCEL NOTE: the fields that start with ** are required fields.

EXCEL NOTE: Excel may add the double quotes around fields for you.  If using the excel spreadsheet template -- note that excel will automatically put double quotes around fields that contain commas.  Manually adding double quotes within excel would result in two sets of double quotes in the .csv file and thus cause an error on import.

EXCEL NOTE: When creating a comma delimited file using Excel, the saved ASCII text file will contain a header row.  This row will be ignored by the import process and will not create any import warnings.  The import process will ignore the header (as well as any other rows) that begin with: #ORG_CODE# or **

Import Task Screen

The Import Task screen simply looks like:

You select the file you would like to import and press the import button.  The import process will commit all data that passes the necessary validations.  That may result in some records being fully imported --  some may be partially imported -- and others may be rejected all together.

All Warnings and Error messages are written to the screen and can then be saved if desired.

Command Line Import

As an alternative to using the Import Screen described above, you can also invoke imports using the command line import functionality.  This functionality allows you to invoke an import without accessing the Unanet system application (user interface).  This may be useful if you would like to write an external process to extract data from an upstream system and programmatically load it into Unanet (without user intervention). 

ImportDiff Utility

If you use the Unanet imports on a regular basis to keep your Unanet data in sync with an external system, and do not have the ability to export only new transactions from the external system, you might be feeding Unanet with a complete reload of data with each run.  In this case, this type of utility may be useful, for example, to compare the contents of yesterday's load file with today's load file --- to identify on those new or changed records.  This could be a useful step if you have very large data volumes.  Check out the ImportDiff Utility for more information. 

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Copyright © 1998-2002 Computer Strategies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Last revised: September 13, 2002.