Import from CSV - Activities

Availability

Overview

Requirements

The minimum permissions required for importing activities are the "Manage system settings" global permission and the "Add activities" permission for the user's project access level (when importing into projects where the user is a member) or non-project member global permissions (when the user is not a member of the destination project).

Import wizard

You can have activities stored as a CSV file imported to Birdview PSA using a wizard.

To be imported to Birdview PSA, a CSV file should have values in their respective places and separated by a list separator (default is a comma). An example of CSV file fields:

1. Activity name
2. Activity description
3. ID
4. Parent ID
5. Estimated duration
6. Start date
7. End date

A portion of a source CSV file might look like this:

Activity name;Description;ID;ParentID;Duration;Start date;End date
Configure;activity1;20;;25;6/5/2007;6/20/2007
Develop;activity2;21;;30;6/5/2007;6/18/2007
Test;activity3;22;;40;6/5/2007;6/17/2007

As you can see, the first line contains the names of fields the values correspond to. Whilst it is useful for some purposes, it may wreak havoc during import. For this reason, you will have the option to skip the first line while importing data from a CSV file.

Importing a list of activities

To import a group of activities stored in a CSV file, follow these steps:

1. Go to Activity Center | More actions () | Import from CSV.
2. Select Tasks from the "Import list of" drop-down list.
3. In the Default project field, select the project you want to import the tasks to.
4. Click "Browse" opposite the "Select CSV file:" field, and find the source CSV file.
5. In the Field separator field, select a field separator used in the CSV file (comma and semicolon are the most common separator).
6. Select the Skip first line of the file checkbox (refer to the second note above)
7. Click "Next".
8. Perform field mapping, i.e. link fields of activities being imported with Birdview ones, including custom fields. Use "Add field" to add new fields for mapping.

9. Use "Reset fields" if you have made a mistake adding fields.
10. Click "Import".

You will get the message ‘Import completed. X records were imported successfully.' if import has been successful.

Importing activities to multiple projects

The activity import procedure described above covers the case where ALL activities imported from a CSV file are assigned to a single project in Birdview PSA. If you need to import activities so that they automatically assigned to their respective projects in Birdview PSA, you need to take additional steps to make sure the import is successful.

1. Make sure the source CSV file contains a column "Project name" and includes the names of projects the activities being imported belong to.

2. Go to Activity Center | More actions () | Import from CSV
3. Select Tasks from the "Import list of" drop-down list.
4. In the Default project field, select the project you want to import the tasks to if the "Project name" field is empty.

5. Click "Browse" opposite the "Select CSV file:" field, and find the source CSV file.
6. In the Field separator field, select a field separator used in the CSV file (comma and semicolon are the most common separator).
7. Select the Skip first line of the file checkbox (refer to the second note above)
8. Click "Next".
9. Perform field mapping, i.e. link fields of both projects and activities being imported with Birdview ones, including custom fields. Use "Add field" to add new fields for mapping.
10. Click "Import".

You will get a message ‘Import completed. X records were imported successfully.’ if import has been successful.

Note on notifications

Since this operation can generate potentially a great many changes in your system of projects and activities, resulting in a massive influx of incoming letters, the notifications are automatically disabled during the import of activities from a CSV file.

Note on ID and ParentID

The import routine cannot use existing ID numbers. When importing activities, Birdview PSA will not keep the IDs you’ve manually inserted under the ID and ParentID column but replace them with next available instead. However, these columns are used during import should you wish to have two or more of the imported activities be in the parent-child relationship, as shown by their corresponding ID and ParentID numbers, i.e. when ID value of one activity is equal to the value in the ParentID column of one or more other ones (child, or sub-, activities) being imported, they will remain such once imported.

In the example below, the activity IDs and Parent IDs entered will not be maintained as shown once the activities are imported, but the "Gantt Chart" will be made a sub-activity of the "Writing Progress Report", using the next available activity ID’s generated by the system.