Importing Data

Bulk data does not go straight into SBN's live tables. It lands first in a staging list — Import Interface (#1889) — where you read it, correct it, and post it a row at a time or all at once. The operational imports an administrator runs are installations, zones, contacts and open/close schedules. Payment and general-ledger imports take their own route through Import Posting Control (#1878) and the billing programs.

How the module progresses

1. Decide when to import, and read the staging list.
2. Build a record by hand and post it.
3. Prepare an import file.
4. Load a file into staging and post it.
5. Fix what failed and clear the list.

1. Decide when to import, and read the staging list

Task: choose between typing, copying and importing for a given job, then open Import Interface and read a staged row without posting anything.

Three routes into an installation record. Typing in Data Entry (#559) is the default (the Creating Installations and Zones modules). Copy Zone/Plan [SHIFT+F4] on the Data Entry main screen pulls zones and action plans from another CID or installation into the current one, and can bring contacts, inspection devices, physical components and panel defaults with them. Import Interface (#1889) is the third: data in volume, or data from somewhere else.

Volume decides. Forty installations from a dealer's spreadsheet, or one panel swap across thirty premises, is an import. One changed phone number is not.

Import Interface opens blank. Import Interface holds a separate list per data type and shows none until you choose one. Toggle Mode [F5] steps through: Contacts, Zones, Customers, Contracts, Cycle Fees, Addresses, Installation, Work Order, Composite, Basic, WO Installers.

Columns you get in every mode. Record Number, the Applied flag — X means the row is posted and in the database — the Error Code, the Alarm ID (the CID), the Install #, the Dealer ID, and the Add, Delete and Change flags. Exactly one of those three flags has to be ticked; a row with none is refused at posting.

Nothing is live until you post. Rows sit in the list with Applied blank, and you can read, change or delete them in your own time. Two things put them there: you type them with New Record [F3], or a file loads them through Operational Imports (#541). Composite and Basic hold only schedule changes from imports 159 and 160 — awareness level; the Open/Close Schedule reference owns them.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): three jobs — forty installations arrive as a dealer's spreadsheet; a new commercial installation needs the same five zones as one you already have; one contact's phone number changed on MILLER (TRA-00002). Name the route for each. Then open #1889 and step Toggle Mode [F5] through every mode, saying which lists hold rows.

Guided practice: on your own commercial installation, use Copy Zone/Plan [SHIFT+F4] in Data Entry (#559) to bring MILLER's zones and action plans across, then read the Change Log — the Field column carries one character per item you asked for, X for copied and O for not, so copying everything but panel defaults reads XXXXXO.

Independent practice: someone tells you "the import worked". Name the column in #1889 that settles it, and say what a row with a blank Applied flag and no error code means.

2. Build a record by hand and post it

Task: create, save and post a contact record in Import Interface, and confirm the result in Data Entry.

Contacts mode has no file behind it — you type the row into the staging list and post it, which is the shortest way to see the whole cycle end to end.

Steps:

1. In #1889, Toggle Mode [F5] to Contacts.
2. New Record [F3] — the lower pane opens.
3. Identify the installation: the CID, or the Installation No with the Dealer ID.
4. Tick Add.
5. Enter Name, Phone and its phone type, Sequence, and the passcard number and extension where the installation uses passcards.
6. Leave Plan blank to update action plan 0, or type the plan number.
7. Save [Enter], then select the row and Post One Record [F7].

The rules the row has to satisfy. Adding: the sequence must not already exist; where the installation uses passcards, that passcard must not either; where it does not, name and phone are both required. Changing: the sequence must already exist, and passcard and extension must match — a blank field leaves the existing value alone, except the phone number, where a blank clears it. Deleting: the sequence must match, and without passcards the phone must match too.

What SBN decides for you. An imported contact gets authority level 4, and a sequence number above the next free one is moved down to the next available — the posted row shows the sequence actually assigned.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): add a contact to your own residential installation — name, phone, sequence 3, plan left blank — save it, post it, and find the new row on the Action Plans tab of Data Entry (#559) at plan 0.

Guided practice: change that contact's phone number through a second Contacts row (Change ticked, same sequence), post it, and confirm the new number in Data Entry. Then say what an empty phone field would have done.

Independent practice: delete the contact through Import Interface, then state the two things a Delete row has to match before SBN acts on it — and what it takes to reverse a deletion you posted by mistake.

3. Prepare an import file

Task: build a tab-delimited import file that SBN's loader will accept.

Tab-delimited text, no heading row. Start from the sample workbook for the import, fill your data in underneath, then delete the heading row entirely — clearing the cells is not enough. Save as tab-delimited .txt.

Column order is the layout. There is no mapping step; SBN reads columns by position. The zone import expects eleven:

The New column is the flag. X means add, empty means change. Anything else leaves the row with no flag ticked at all, and it will not post.

Priority and text come from the zone type. A new zone lands at priority 9 with the text its zone type gives it; set the real priority on the Zones tab afterwards (the Zones module).

Installations use the same route, a different layout: Name, Street number, Street, City, State, Postal code, CID, Branch, Timezone, Dealer, Group 1, Group 2, Zone ID, Panel, Monitoring status, two empty placeholders for the Applied flag and Error code, then Misc 44, Country and Contract number.

The loader runs from your workstation. The file stays on your PC — SBN pushes it to the server through the APIEngine (sites without one use the client's own bulk loader, which on older clients needs the loader files beside SBN.exe). Nearly every failed load is the same thing: the heading row was left in.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): build a three-row zone import file for your own commercial installation — your reserved CID, three new zones, a valid zone type on each, an action plan that exists on that installation — heading row deleted, saved tab-delimited.

Guided practice: add a fourth row that changes one of MILLER's existing zones instead of adding one. Say what goes in column 1, and which columns have to match the zone already on file.

Independent practice: prepare the first row of an installation import file for a new installation from your reserved CID/Ins# block, and mark which columns SBN will reject if the branch, dealer or monitoring status is wrong.

4. Load a file into staging and post it

Task: run an import file into the staging list and post the rows it produced.

Steps:

1. In #1889, Toggle Mode [F5] to the mode that matches the file — Zones for a zone import, Installation for an installation import.
2. Import [CTRL+F8] opens Operational Imports (#541).
3. Choose your company from the dropdown; its available imports appear.
4. Select the zone import for #1889, then Select Import [F6].
5. Type or browse to the file name, choose a template if one is defined, and Run Import. A console window opens while the loader runs.
6. Save, return to #1889, and Refresh [F11].
7. The rows are in the list, Applied blank. Post One Record [F7] for the selected row, or Post All Records [F8] for the lot.

Loading is not posting. The load moves rows out of your file into the staging list and barely checks them; everything that decides whether the data is any good happens at posting.

Posting validates every unposted row, every time. SBN re-checks the flags, the CID or installation number, the action plan, the zone type and the codeword, writes the rows that pass and ticks their Applied flag, and leaves the failures with an error number. Applied rows are skipped, so Post All Records [F8] can be pressed again to retry failures without touching successes.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): your three-row zone file goes into the staging list. Read it before anything is posted — three rows, Add ticked, Applied blank, no error codes — then post one row and read the list again.

Guided practice: post the remaining rows with Post All Records [F8], then confirm the new zones on the Zones tab of your commercial installation in Data Entry (#559). Note the priority each one landed at and say where it came from.

Independent practice: a file of forty rows posts and eleven fail. Say what you press to retry after fixing them, why that is safe on a list holding twenty-nine applied rows, and what you would check first if all forty had failed.

5. Fix what failed and clear the list

Task: read an error on a staged row, correct it, re-post it, and leave the staging list clean.

Read the error on the row. The Error Code column carries the number; double-click the row and the number and its description appear in the lower pane. The ones you meet most:

Fix in place — do not rebuild the file. Change Record [F2] opens the lower pane on the selected row; correct the field, Save, then Post One Record [F7]. A row that never posted changed nothing, so there is nothing to undo first.

Clear up when you are done. Delete Record [SHIFT+F10] removes one staged row; Delete All Posted [CTRL+F10] removes every row carrying an Applied flag, which is the normal end of a successful import.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): stage a zone row with a zone type that does not exist, post it, read the error, fix the zone type with Change Record [F2], post again, and confirm the zone on the Zones tab.

Guided practice: stage a contact row with the Add flag left off, and a second one against a CID that is not in Branch TRAIN. Post both, and match each error number to the field that caused it before touching anything.

Independent practice: clear your staged rows down to an empty Zones and Contacts list, then say what you would tell a colleague who found forty applied rows in Import Interface from last month — and whether deleting them changes anything in Data Entry.

6. Quick reference

One-liners: #1889 is a staging list, not the database · nothing is live until it is posted · exactly one of Add, Delete, Change per row · tab-delimited, heading row deleted, columns read by position · posting is where validation happens · Post All is safe to repeat · finish by clearing the applied rows.