Import Project

Privilege Needed: Administrator

This feature allows Administrators to import 'Project' information into the Unanet system. This project information can be either new entries or the data on the import can be used to update existing project data.

To import Project detailed Task information, see the Task 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, which are on the project table, that can be imported.

	Field Name	Required/Description
1	Organization Code	ALWAYS REQUIRED. This code uniquely identifies which Organization this Project belongs to. 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 a message: The Organization "..." does not exist. Line....
2	Project Code	ALWAYS REQUIRED. This 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 code is what shows up on most screens and reports. This Project Code is limited to 30 characters.
3	Project Type	ALWAYS REQUIRED. If the Project Type you are trying to import is not in the database, the entire record will not be imported. You will see a message: The Project Type "..." does not exist. Line ....
4	Project Status	ALWAYS REQUIRED. If the Project Status you are trying to import is not in the database, the whole record will not be imported. You will see a message: The Project Status "..." does not exist. Line ....
5	Project Manager	This is the userid of the person in charge of this project. This userid must already exist in the database and must have the Project Manager role. If this userid does not exist, the entire record will not be imported. You can leave this field blank.
6	Open Edit	Grant to all other project managers the rights to Open, View, List or Restrict access to this project. The valid values for this field are either O, V, L or R. If the field is blank or the letter is not one of the four letters listed, the default value will be 'O'.
7	User "Self Sign Up"	Grant whether any user can apply time and/or expenses to this project or only the users who are assigned to this project. 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'.
8	User "Self Plan"	This field is only useful if you have a UnaSource license (that is - this data will be saved -- but ignored by the system). Grant whether any users can plan their own time for this project (in UnaSource). The imported value can be 'C' - Closed, 'O' - Open, 'A' - Plan if Assigned. If the field is blank or the letter is not C, O or A, the default value will be 'C'.
9	Future Charge	Define whether users will be able to charge in advance or not. 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'.
10	Time Manager Approval	Define whether this project requires the time approval of a project manager or not. 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 'N'.
11	Expense Manager Approval	Define whether this project requires the expense approval of a project manager or not. 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 'N'.
12	Time Charged to Tasks	Defines whether a task must be selected when a user attempts to assign time to a project. 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'.
13	Expense Charged to Tasks	Defines whether a task must be selected when a user attempts to assign an expense to a project. 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'.
14	Assign Expenses	Grant whether people can assign expenses to this project. If the field is blank or the letter is not Y or N, the default value will be 'Y'.
15	Original Start Date	The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd" or "MM/dd/yy". This field can be blank.
16	Original End Date	The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd" or "MM/dd/yy". This field can be blank.
17	Revised Start Date	The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd" or "MM/dd/yy". This field can be blank.
18	Revised End Date	The format for the date is either "yyyy-MM-dd" or "MM/dd/yy". This field can be blank.
19	Budget Hours	Total Budgeted hours for the project. This field can be blank.
20	Budget Labor Dollars	Total Labor Dollars budgeted for this project. This field can be blank.
21	Budget Expense Dollars	Total Expense Dollars budgeted for this project. This field can be blank.
22	Hours Used to Date	Total Hours that have been used to date on this project. This field can be blank.
23	Labor Dollars Used to Date	Total Labor Dollars that have been used to date on this project. This field can be blank.
24	Expense Dollars Used to Date	Total Expense Dollars that have been used to date on this project. This field can be blank.
25	Hours Projected Total	Total Hours expected for this project. This field can be blank.
26	Labor Projected Total	Total Labor Dollars expected for this project. This field can be blank.
27	Expense Projected Total	Total Expense Dollars expected for this project. This field can be blank.
28	Account Number	This field can be used to contain an account number (e.g. a GL account number associated with a project). This field can be blank.
29	Project Title	The title of the project -- a more descriptive name than the actual Project Code. This field shows up on several screens and reports throughout the system. This field can be blank.
30	Purpose	This is a more descriptive narrative of the purpose of this project. This field can be many hundreds of bytes. This field can be blank.
31	Assigned Organizations	This field can contain one to many organization codes. If multiple organizations are listed, they must be separated by commas and contained within double quotes. (e.g. Field29,"org1,org2,org3", Field31). This field is used to automatically assign all people within a given organization(s) to a particular project -- without them having to manually add a certain project to their "my projects" list. This field can be left blank. If importing information to an existing project, this field will be ignored if blank (that is -- no change will occur). If this field contains any organizations, all existing assigned organizations will be replaced by the new list included in the import. The organization listed in this filed must be valid unanet organization, otherwise an error message will be produced. *See the EXCEL NOTE regarding the use of double quotes below.
32	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 project -- without them having to manually add a certain project to their "my projects" list. This field can be left blank. If importing information to an existing project, 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", The usernames listed in this filed must be valid unanet users, otherwise an error message will be produced. CAUTION: If you are importing project information into an existing project that has assigned people, 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.
33	Pay Code List	This field can contain one to many valid pay codes (each must be a valid existing pay code within Unanet). If one or more pay codes are listed on a given import record, then any existing pay codes listed for that project will be removed and replaced by the new list. If multiple pay codes are listed, they must be separated by commas and contained within double quotes (e.g. Field32,"paycode1,paycode2,paycode3"). If importing information to an existing project, this field will be ignored if blank (that is -- no change will occur). A special value !Sys_default! can be used to indicate to the system to utilize the list of initial project default pay codes as defined by the administrator in the pay code maintenance screen. If !Sys_default! is used, but no pay codes have been designated as initial project default pay codes, then the effect will be a blank list of project pay codes. *See the EXCEL NOTE regarding the use of double quotes below.
34	Pay Code	This field can contain one distinct valid pay code (must be a valid existing pay code within Unanet). If importing information to an existing project, this field will be ignored if blank (that is -- no change will occur). A special value !Sys_default! can be used to indicate to the system to utilize the "System Wide Default" as defined by the administrator in the pay code maintenance screen. If !Sys_default! is used, but no system wide default has been specified, then the net effect will be that the default pay code will be left blank for the project.
35	Task Level Assignment	Define whether Project Managers can assign individuals at the Project Level or at the Task Level. 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 'N'.
36	Probability Percentage	The project Probability Percentage field can be used to specify a numeric percentage (values should range between 1 and 100 -- but the field will accept values up to 999). Several of the Unanet financial reports can optionally use the value of this field when calculating bill and cost information. This field is required in the database, and if not provided, a default value of 100 will be stored.
37	User Defined 1	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank. Click here for more information about user defined fields for projects.
38	User Defined 2	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
39	User Defined 3	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
40	User Defined 4	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
41	User Defined 5	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
42	User Defined 6	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
43	User Defined 7	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
44	User Defined 8	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
45	User Defined 9	This field can store up to 128 characters and it can be left blank.
46	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:

field1,field2,field3
"field1","field2","field3"
field1,"data containing commas (like this), should be double quoted",field3

Other file format requirements:

Each record must be in the same order as the table above
Note that some fields are always required
If you don't want to import information for a non-required field, just leave this field blank
If a given record does not contain a value for every field, the import will assume the remaining values are blank
The values for Organization, Project Type, and Project Status must match existing entries previously setup in Unanet

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: #ORGANIZATION_CODE# or **

Import Project Screen

The Import Project 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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