Guide › Import & export

Importing data

Bringing in data from Excel/CSV, Darwin Core Archive, XML and occurrence lists.

The Import page (⌘I) brings in data from other files. Before a large import the app always makes a database backup. Entities whose names already exist are merged, not duplicated.

Excel / CSV#

One row per entity. A column-mapping wizard guesses what each column means:

Known columns, such as scientific name, family, author or common name, are mapped to entity fields.
Other columns automatically become new topics, with a name and field type guessed from their contents (text, number, choice, date).
Cells formatted as HTML, such as italic scientific names, are cleaned.
Columns that are completely empty can be dropped.
The Complete classification (GBIF) option fills in kingdom → family after the import.

When finished, a summary shows how many entities were created, updated and skipped, with a View entities button.

Tip: The first row of the file must contain the column headings. For Excel files with several sheets, choose the sheet in the first step of the wizard.

Darwin Core Archive#

A checklist .zip from GBIF or an IPT. Entities, synonyms, common names and descriptions are imported.

XML#

A single XML file, or a folder of many XML files. Supports XML exported from other Pustaka Biodiversitas projects (round trips without losing data) and entity XML together with the media it refers to.

Occurrences#

Lists of specimens or observations for many species. See Importing occurrences.