[CWISUsers] More questions about importing data

[Edward Almasy]

On Thu, May 27, at 09:07:44AM, Siobhan Bredin wrote:
> Hi, all. It's been helpful for us to look at the thread about importing 
> data. Here are 3 more questions about this topic:
> 
> 1) Can we import data from a bunch of different sources, then tag all 
> items as inactive until our staff has a chance to review, catalog and make 
> most of them active, and discard some? We have resource databases from 3 
> different projects here at EDC and probably 80% of the content will apply 
> to the focus of the new digital library.

   Yes -- just set the Release Flag option on the Import Data screen to
   "Create Records Not Approved for Viewing" before doing the import.

   You can also import a file with a mix of approved and unapproved
   resources by selecting "Use Value as it Appears in the Input File"
   and including a "Release Flag" field in the imported data, populated
   with 1 (approved) or 0 (unapproved).


> 2) Do we have to set up the metadata tags we want to use in CWIS before we 
> can import data?

   You do have to have metadata fields (added, if necessary, using the
   Metadata Field Editor) corresponding to each of the tab-delimited
   columns in the data files being imported.


> 3) If yes to 2, do all of the fields of the imported data have to match 
> the metadata tags we select in CWIS?

   The first line of the import file must contain the names of the
   metadata fields (exactly as you defined them in the Metadata Field
   Editor), and each subsequent line must contain entries for each of
   those fields.  (The entries may be empty -- i.e. nothing between the
   delimiting tab characters -- but they must be there on each line.)

   Ed


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   Edward Almasy                                     ealmasy at scout.wisc.edu
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