Import

The Import functionality gives the user the ability to bulk update data stored in the database. There are numerous Import buttons throughout NEXUS IC — the Import button on the Assets screen allows you to import assets and Asset Information; the Import button on the Library screen allows you to import Library Types; the Import button on the Library tab within the Library screen allows you to import Library items; etc.

The format of the Excel workbook needs to be very specific. It is recommended that you use the Example button (shown below) to generate an Excel template in a format suitable for importing data.

The Import Template generated from the Example button will highlight fields which have been flagged as Required fields, set up lookup lists and provide information on the format and field type in the grey rows as shown here:

Caution

It is important to note that as the Importer is importing rows, the SQL server creates Row and Table Locks. This may mean that to other users accessing NEXUS IC, the application may appear unresponsive. When the import has finished and the data committed, then the Row and Table locks are released and the other users will be able to continue using NEXUS IC as normal.

The Import Wizard

1. Import Filename - Navigate to the file which has been prepared for import. Compatible filetypes include .zip, .xlsx (Excel), .csv, and .txt. Zip files will contain the xlsx/csv/txt file plus any additional files, eg. multimedia images or electronic documents for importing into the library. You can tick the checkbox next to Skip Blank Cells to stop the importer from overwriting existing data with empty cell data. If it is left unchecked, and the import document contains fields with empty cells, those fields in the database will be overwritten with empty or null data, or be given a default value determined by NEXUS IC.

Tip

For very large imports, saving your Excel file as a .csv and then importing from the .csv may be faster.

2. Configure Import - If you would like to make changes to the Destination fields or elect to ignore some fields, then click on the column heading titled Field: and choose from the options presented in the pop up menu. Finally, ensure that the correct Asset View is selected from the Required Fields selection box and that the number of Header Rows and worksheet are correct (by default this will be 1 or 2 rows). Note that if the field type is set to change for an existing field, the import will abort as data loss may occur.

3. Test Import - A test is run on the selected file, testing the import for errors. If the test is successful, you may proceed to submit the import job. If the test produced errors, you must rectify the errors in the import file and start the import wizard again. There are some niche edge cases where errors will not be reported during the test, however, generally the test import provides a good indication of whether the import will succeed.

Note

When importing inspection event data, anomaly triggers are checked during the import and findings created automatically from data which falls outside the data bounds.

4. Submission - If using a SaaS client, the import job is offloaded to the SaaS server and is started remotely. It is then possible to close the current NEXUS IC session while the active import job continues. If using a non-SaaS client, the import job is executed in the current NEXUS IC session and you may continue using NEXUS IC. Closing the current NEXUS IC session will cancel the active import job. In both cases, the UI will refresh intermittently throughout the import, and there will be delays between the import finishing and final refresh as NEXUS IC does not directly monitor changes. Jobs are visible in the Job Management Console, which records the status and history of all import jobs.

5. Import Details - The import job banner at the bottom of the window will contain a dropdown menu with the option to dismiss or show details. Clicking ‘Details’ will show a window that summarises the import, advising the user how many rows have been added to various forms/tables. It is important that you scrutinise this summary to ensure that the import has performed the actions that you expected. What is important to take note of is the total rows for a specific item; i.e. add together the number added and updated and make sure that is equal to the number you expect. If you have multiple rows in your import sheet that update the same row, these rows will be counted by the test import individually, whereas the final import statistics will only show 1 updated row. There is the option to save the summary to file.

Tip

If the importer encounters a completely blank row in an Excel file, it will stop importing at that point, even if there are non-blank rows further down. This can provide an easy way to test an import sheet: set it up, and then after just one or two rows of data, insert a blank. Run the import to see if it’s doing what you expect, and if so, delete the blank and run again. Similarly, if the importer encounters a blank column in an Excel file, columns to the right of this will not be imported.

Tip

You can have one ‘Asset Location.Full Location’ column, with levels in the asset hierarchy separated by space slash space, like ‘My Field / My Platform / My Member’, or many ‘Asset Location.Full Location’ columns, with one asset hierarchy level in each. (But you can’t mix the two, with one containing ‘My Field / My Platform’ and a second containing ‘My Member’.)

Sub-rows

Sometimes a single “master” row will have several “detail” rows. For example, an asset information row might have several sub-AIG rows; or an event might have several findings or several multimedia images or both. When this occurs, you should repeat the row, with different “detail” values in each.

For example, if you have several multimedia images to import against a single event, your Excel sheet should have several rows that are identical except for the Multimedia.Name and Multimedia.Image columns. If you have specified an event number, and you use the same event number on each row, NEXUS will only create the event once, but will create several multimedia items. (If you do not specify an event number, NEXUS will instead create several different events with one multimedia item each.)

Tip

You can find the next available event number for a given event type by creating an event of that type using Add Event, noting the event number, then deleting that event. If you want next available event numbers for several event types, create a report template with a Simple Source on table Event and a Pivot Table with a pivot row on Event Type and a value field on Event Number with aggregate Max. Then add 1.

It is also acceptable to leave event fields blank for all except the last row — under the hood, NEXUS is importing each Excel row into the event, and only the last Excel row imported will “stick”. Note that if your event has a finding, you should not repeat the finding data on each event row — if you do, NEXUS will create one finding for each Excel row that has finding data filled in.

In some cases you do want multiple findings on one event, and in that case you should fill in several rows as appropriate. Similarly for sub-event data or sub-AIG data: if you want several different sub-events or sub-AIG rows imported, you should repeat the event row or AIG row with different sub-event or sub-AIG data in each case. If you are repeating an Excel row for another reason and you do not want several sub-event or sub-AIG rows imported, you should fill in sub-event or sub-AIG data in only one of the Excel rows.

Excel

During an import, we communicate with Excel “behind the scenes”: we command Excel to open the file you want to import, and ask Excel what’s in each cell. An upshot of this is that if you use Excel to modify the file while we’re importing it, even if you don’t hit Save, you may confuse the import process. Similarly if you take a variety of other actions: using Save As, closing Excel, etc. If you see error text “Call was rejected by callee”, this is what’s happened: Excel has stopped answering our calls.

Note

It is possible to create new Asset Hierarchies by importing Assets with hierarchy structures that don’t already exist. In doing so, new Parent Assets will be created. In case this is not the desired result, the Test Import will throw a warning, for example:

Line x: Parent Asset “Example Parent” will be created for the location “Wood / Example Parent / 00C-2401A”

“xx new Parent Asset(s) will be added.”