Exporting data from DataSets for Import

Guides
1

This guide will take you through how to export data held in DataSets to import into a singular DataSet.

Background.

Users may find that they have two or more DataSets that they would prefer to combine into a single DataSet. Xibo supports importing and exporting CSV data, which can be used to combine the data of multiple DataSets.

We recommend creating a completely new DataSet to import data into, rather than using an existing DataSet, to avoid any potential issues with existing data in the event the import is misconfigured or another issue occurs.

Please note that for this guide ‘LibreOffice Calc’ was used to open and modify CSV files.

DataSets

For this example I have created two simple DataSets with identical columns:

  1. Dataset Import (we will use this DataSet to import our existing data):

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This DataSet contains no data.

  1. Dataset Export (we will use this DataSet as our existing data):

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  1. So that we have some data to export, I have created a row in Dataset Export which contains a data entry as shown below:

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Export Data to a CSV

  • Click on DataSets under the Library section of the main menu.
  • Use the Row Menu, at the end of the DataSet row you wish to export data from (in this case the DataSet I will choose is labelled Dataset export) and select View Data.
  • Use the Show Entries field (as shown in the above screen shot by the green arrow to the left) to a value to meet your requirements.
  • Now click the CSV button (as shown in the above screenshot by the blue arrow on the right) to export the data as a CSV file.

Please note: If you have more than 100 entries to export, you will need to repeat the above process for each page of 100 results until you have exported all data.

Prepare CSV for importing

  • Open the CSV file and you will see the data as shown below:

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  • Delete the first column labelled ID. This will then leave only the Data that corresponds to the columns created in your dataset:

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  • Save the changes to the CSV file.

If you edit the CSV file using Excel, you will need to make sure you select “Unicode (UTF-8)” from the Tools → Web Options → Encoding tab on the ‘Save as’ dialogue!

Import data into DataSet

  • Return to the DataSets page in your CMS and locate the DataSet you wish to import the data into. (For this example I will use the DataSet labelled Dataset import)
  • Use the Row Menu dropdown at the end of the DataSet and select Import CSV (as highlighted by the arrow below).

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  • The CSV import window will open.
  • As we want to combine our data we need to leave the Overwrite existing data? option unticked
  • Make sure you tick the Ignore First Row? option, otherwise the row containing the Column Names will also import which will cause errors with the merge.

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  • Next you must make sure that the Column Numbers in the CSV file are matched correctly to the Column Titles for the DataSet you wish to import the data into. In my example, you can see that the String column was the first column in my CSV, Number was the second and Library was the third, so my numbers and titles are correctly matched.
  • Once you are sure this is set correctly, click the Add CSV file button at the top of the CSV Import form and select the exported CSV. Once selected click on the Start Upload button.
  • When the upload is complete, click Done to close the window.

Now that the upload is complete, we can see the data successfully imported into Dataset import:

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I hope the above guide is useful and highlights the need for extra caution when importing a CSV file into an existing DataSet.