Importing content feeds – time and date issues
I have been running into problems importing content feeds into my group’s program worksheets (storage center for all of our group’s event information). I did a test run of 88 events although I’ll be importing over 1400 events in the near future. The main problems I am running into are:
1) Event times are 4 hours off. I had run into this problem before, and we fixed it by changing the setting to “No timezone conversion.” I did notice that it then changed all of the existing event times to be 4 hours off and manually fixed them. Since we’ve added significantly more events since then, I want to ensure that the existing events don’t get changed and the new events are imported with the correct time.
2) Event dates are lost on some (but not all) events so this information doesn’t appear on the main table.
Thank you for the help!
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
Can you provide urls for dates/times that work and those that don’t. And for the ones that don’t show the correct time, can you tell us what the time should be.
Can you tell us what dates are lost? It would also be helpful to attach the spreadsheet.
Here is the spreadsheet I am using:
/sites/default/files/files/Upload_1-88.xlsx
The events that I am testing are all from Fall 2013 / Spring 2014 and currently start on page 3 and go to page 7. Approximately half the dates viewable from the main page are imported.
Example of events that worked:
http://gsl.yale.edu/center-engineering-innovation-and-design-workshop
http://gsl.yale.edu/be-suave-us-alcohol-culture
Example of date and time missing:
http://gsl.yale.edu/trip-haunted-isle
Example of correct date but incorrect time (also not showing end time; 10am-12pm):
http://gsl.yale.edu/families-farm-common-ground
Example of incorrect date and correct time (should be 9/7/2013 - seems to be flipped month/date):
http://gsl.yale.edu/ct-folk-festival-and-post-reception
I’m looking at this but it’s quite complex. Should be able to resolve by the end of the week.
Hi Nancy, I was just wondering about the status of this problem. Thank you for all the help!
If anyone could help me on this problem that would be great. I am getting more pressure from my supervisors to complete this project before the end of the semester since I will no longer be a graduate student life fellow after this year. Thank you!
Hello Michelle,
I’m looking into this. I’ve downloaded a copy of the file you are trying to import and will be looking closely at your feed configuration. Should it be a bug we might have to do a site refresh (Updating Modules) but I will keep you posted.
Josue
Thanks Josue!
Hello Michelle,
I’ve made some changes to the way the import handles the data once its being imported. Can you try and re-import your worksheet? My recommendation is to delete any you have already imported to avoid confusion. In (http://gsl.yale.edu/import/program_worksheet_import_) you will see a Delete Items tab in the top. This is so that you can delete any previous imports. Let me know if the import works now.
Josue
Hi Josue,
Thank you for working on this. I deleted the old import and uploaded the new one. Good news is that the events which were imported were successful in terms of the correct content being uploaded. Bad news is that only 3 out of the 88 made it through… I also received the same error that we were trying to work through last time (picture below) and haven’t been able to figure out how to solve this problem… Error image:
Hello Michelle,
I downloaded the file you are trying to upload, then saved it as UTF-8 in a text editor and re-uploaded. They seem to be working. Can you check?
Josue
Hi Josue,
It looks like the events have imported; however there are the same problems with the dates and times… (all problems as listed above - missing dates/times, incorrect times, etc.)
:(
Hello Michelle,
I just updated the date fields in the file to be 12hrs instead of the 24hr time. Can you check the dates now?
Josue
Hi Josue,
It looks like all of the dates have been imported (hooray!! :). However all of the times are still ~3-5 hours off. Here are examples: (Most appear to be 5 hours off)
3 hours off:
http://gsl.yale.edu/center-engineering-innovation-and-design-workshop-0 (Should be 1:00pm)
4 hours off:
http://gsl.yale.edu/mcdougal-trivia-night-international-style (Should be 8:30pm)
5 hours off:
http://gsl.yale.edu/cultivating-gratitude (Should be 6:30pm)
http://gsl.yale.edu/mcdougal-trivia-night-international-style (Should be 5:00pm)
Thank you!
I’ve made some tweaks. Can you check now? I did notice the first event listed’s content shows 2pm. Apparently there are two events. 1 at 1pm the other at 2pm.
Josue
It’s looking great! Thank you!
Hi Josue,
Might have spoken too soon. I uploaded the rest of our events in a UTF file. All seemed to have been imported; however the month and day of the event date seems to be switched or doesn’t appear at all. The pattern looks like it tries to switch the month/day, and if it can’t it leaves it blank. Is this an easy fix? :(… Sorry this is such a hassle.
Examples:
http://gsl.yale.edu/grad-dessert-chaplain (Wrong date - should be 9/12/2006; correct times)
http://gsl.yale.edu/health-advocates-meeting-1 (Wrong date - should be 10/4/2006; correct times)
http://gsl.yale.edu/desk-serving-soup-kitchen-oct (No date; No time - should be 10/13/2006)
http://gsl.yale.edu/blue-star-red-stripes (No date; no time - should be 7/28/2005)
It also looks like the 1-88 nodes that were working before also now have this problem (had just added events onto the original file without changing anything else)
Hello Michelle,
I took a look at the file used for uploading. It seems the dates on that file are different. Some are listed as M-D-Y, others are M/D/Y, and some times are listed as 09:30:00, where are others showed 9:30:00. It seems they are not all consistent. Can you highlight all the dates and make sure they are of the same formats in the date columns and try again?
Josue
Ah hmm, yes it seems that there are a lot of inconsistencies. Highlighting and selecting a format doesn’t seem to work. I can change them manually… but I wanted to ask if you knew of a faster way to handle this problem since a pretty significant number need to be changed. If not, I’ll work on getting them in the same format when I get back from vacation in a week. Currently I am doing M/D/Y XX:XX PM/AM (no additional zeroes with month or day). Is this an acceptable format or should I correct them to something else?
Would you like to send me the full file? I can take a look for you.
Josue
Sure, the file that I uploaded last is here:
/sites/default/files/files/Final_Upload_GSL_2007-2013_UTF8.csv
Thanks!
Hello Michelle,
After looking at your file, I noticed that some dates are missing the actual date (showing only the time), some date fields are blank all together, and others contain text in the date field (i.e. “first Wednesday of the month”). This is definitely the reason the dates are not all showing since the feed will stop at the error. Will this be the only file you will be importing? Is this a one time import?
Josue
Unfortunately the past data collection system was write-in so the entries are not very consistent in format and sometimes past fellows didn’t input the data. I’m not quite sure what to do about recurring events either. Yes, this is the only file we’ll be importing and it’s a one time import.
Michelle