Importing metadata rows

Metadata rows may be imported from an external file by clicking the Import Rows button at the bottom of the Metadata Table view. Doing so brings up the dialog shown in figure 3.14.

Image metadata_import_rows
Figure 3.14: Dialog used to import rows into a Metadata Table.

Row import is parameterized as follows:

Click the Finish button in the dialog when done. The Workbench will then import data from the file, looking for column headers within the file matching those already specified for the columns in the Metadata Table. Only cell values in columns with an exact name match will be imported. This means that if your file contains columns not in your Metadata Table, the values in those columns will be ignored. Conversely, if your Metadata Table contains columns not present in the file, imported rows will have no values for those columns.

The imported rows will appear in the Metadata Table view. The Metadata Table may now be saved.

Importing rows may be done also on a Metadata Table that already contains rows. If a key column is present, the import will overwrite values in rows where the key value matches incoming data. If no existing row matches incoming data in the key column, or if no key column has been specified, incoming data will just be appended to the Metadata Table.

Please note: As importing data can potentially result in a lot of rows being added, a separate process for importing is started. You can see the progress and finally the status of this process in the Process tab of the Toolbox. Any errors resulting from an import that failed can also be seen here, or you may have to consult the 'Advanced' tab in the error dialog shown. Typical examples of errors could be selecting the wrong separator or encoding, or wrong date/time formats.