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Overview

Time records may be imported and exported.  For the format details, please see: Sharing Data with Other Programs.

Client, Descriptor, and Accounts Receivable data may be imported into or exported from Time Logger.  The text file contains one record per line.  While you can change the delimiters in the Tools/User Options/Other window, we recommend this only for advanced users who understand the consequences

NOTE: The data for clients, descriptors and accounts receivable (invoices and payments) is stored in Microsoft Access format database files (.mdb).  For information about how to access these files directly see: Sharing Data Directly Through .mdb Files.

 

IMPORTING TIPS:

•For all of your editing of the file to import, make sure you use a plain text editor like Notepad or EditPad Pro or JEdit.  Each of those is available for free.  Just search for them by name on the Internet.
•Do not open and save a file you want to import file using Microsoft Excel.  It will destroy the formatting.
•Make sure there is no word wrapping and that each line contains just one record in its full length.
•No blank lines at the beginning, middle or end of the file.  Be sure to delete the last blank line in the file.
•If the data field is empty, do not skip it, but rather include two double quotes next to each other with no space between like this: "first", "", "third", "fourth"
•Make sure all of the double quotes (") [or your designated Prefix and Suffix characters] are balanced and have a match.  Improperly balanced double-quotes might not be caught as an error and your data may import into the wrong fields.
•Make sure that you have commas [or your designated Field Delimiter character] between each field and outside the Prefix and Suffix character.
•Verify all of the data (each field or column) is the correct data, type and format.  When in doubt about importing, export some existing data and see how Time Logger formats it.  Use that same format in your import file.

 

Clients Import/Export Format

The importing and exporting is done from:  Client List window (Edit/Edit Client Information),

NOTE: On the Client List window you may change the width of the columns.  Decreasing the width of one of the columns to zero, making it invisible, is fine for viewing the data, but that column will not be exported in that situation.

Here's the format for Clients data (10 data values):

Client Name, Terms, A/R Category, Contact Person, Address 1, Address 2, City,State, Zip, Comment

Here is some sample data:

"ABC Corp.","Net 30","","Joe","123 Main","","Troy","CA","92892","Thanks"
"AR Software","Net 30","Fees","Betsy","234 Center","#1","Baker","CA","94700","Acct. 34232"

 

NOTE: When you import clients, their name is automatically added as a Client in the Client Descriptor list.

 

Descriptors Import/Export Format

The importing and exporting is done from:  Edit Descriptors window (Records/Edit Record Descriptors)

Here's the Descriptors import/export format (4 data values):

Descriptor Text, Type, Text of Descriptor to Which it is Linked, Type of Descriptor to Which it is linked

The first field is the descriptor itself.  It may be something like "Research" or "IBM Corporation" or "60.00".

The second field is the descriptor type -- that is, Person, Client, Project, Subproject, Activity, etc.  This is how the different types are represented:

Descriptor Type

Number

Person

0

Client

1

Project

2

Subproject

3

Activity

4

Other

5

Hourly Rate

6

Internal Rate

7

Tax Rate

8

Mileage Rate

9

The third field is the text of the descriptor to which this descriptor is linked (if you are not familiar with descriptor linking, please see Linking Descriptors).  For example, if the client "EasySoft" is linked to the Person "Bob Smith," then this third field would contain "Bob Smith."

The fourth and final field is the descriptor type of the descriptor that the current descriptor is linked to.  If there is no link, then the value of this field should be -1.

To clarify, here are two examples:

"45.00","6","HTML Programming"," 4"

In this example, the descriptor is "45.00" and is type 6, that is, an hourly rate.  It is linked to "HTML Programming" which is of type 4: Activity.

"Nexus Corporation"," 1","","-1"

This example shows a client descriptor, "Nexus Corporation" that is not linked to any other descriptors.

Note that all four fields must be present on one line.

All fields must be represented -- if you wish to omit a value for a field, that field should be represented by a pair of quotes with no characters between them (as in the second example above).

 

Accounts Receivable Import/Export Format

The importing and exporting is done from:  Accounts Receivable window (Invoices/Accounts Receivable).

NOTE: On the Accounts Receivable window you may change the width of the columns.  Decreasing the width of one of the columns to zero, making it invisible, is fine for viewing the data, but that column will not be exported in that situation.

Here's the Invoice/Payment import/export format (7 data values):

Invoice or Payment, Number, Client, Date, Amount, File Name, Comment

The first field should be the text "Invoice" or "Payment".  Payment amounts must be negative with the - minus sign.  Invoice amounts are positive (do not add the plus sign).

Here is an example showing an invoice of $1,000 and a payment of $500:

"Invoice","1000","AR Software","11/20/06","1,000.00","c:\timelog\InvoiceNumber1000.rtf","First invoice"

"Payment","2045","AR Software","12/02/06","-500.00","","Dave told me the rest is on it's way"