Admin Events Import

CSV Import

For a template file (containing field titles) you can click the link “Click here to download CSV template file.” in the instructions box. Edit this file in your favorite spreadsheet software to add your event content prior to upload. (Refresh recommends Microsoft Excel & OpenOffice.org Calc)

Spreadsheet Software Formatting

When you open the template file in a Spreadsheet program the EventDate, StartTime & EndTime fields will likely be formatted incorrectly. Please be sure you've formatted these fields properly before you save or export to a CSV file.

Data Fields

• Enclosed By - Helios supports CSV import with fields enclosed by single quote ('), double quote ("), or fields without an enclosure character (NONE). Select the enclosed character your CSV uses from the select list.
• Terminated By - Helios supports CSV import with fields terminated (separated) by a comma (,). Select the terminating character your CSV uses from the select list.

Event Data (Imported Fields)

These following fields, their order and the noted formats discussed below are required. Failure to format import data correctly will result in import failure or importing the data incorrectly. While the data for a given field may not be required, the inclusion of that field in the import structure is required.

Field	Data Required	Note
EventTitle	Yes	text up to 150 chars
Description	No	HTML Allowed - All text must be on the same line (CSV Formatted). To produce line breaks use <br /> or <p></p> HTML tags.
Cost	No	text up to 50 chars
EventDate	Yes	Format: YYYY-MM-DD
StartTime	Depends	Format: HH:MM:SS - 24 hour time (Required if AllDay = 0)
EndTime	No	Format: HH:MM:SS - 24 hour time
AllDay	Yes	0 or 1, 0 = No, 1 = Yes (If Yes Start & End Times Ignored)
LocationID	Yes	Numeric ID of the Location the event is assigned to1 (0 if using Custom Location)
LocationName	Depends	text up to 50 chars (Required if LocationID is Blank or 0)
LocationAddress	No	text up to 50 chars
LocationAddress2	No	text up to 75 chars (2nd Address Line, Ex: Apt/Suite/Office \#)
LocationCity	No	text up to 50 chars
LocationState	No	text up to 30 chars (Use Abbreviation from selectRegion.php file)
LocationZip	No	text up to 11 chars
LocationCountry	No	text up to 50 chars
ContactName	Depends	text up to 50 chars
ContactEmail	Depends	text up to 75 chars
ContactPhone	No	text up to 25 chars
ContactURL	No	text up to 100 chars (http:// prefix is required in URL)
Billboard	Yes	0 or 1, 0 = Don't Show on Billboard, 1 = Show on Billboard
SeriesID	No	text up to 20 chars. Must be unique for each series, events with matching SeriesID will be part of the same series. Do not use spaces or special character. Leave blank for single occurrence events.

- If the event is assigned to a Location (via LocationID) the Location data imported will be ignored. To use custom imported Location data leave the LocationID field NULL or 0.

¹ - To find a Location's ID number edit the location, the lID in the URL is the Location's ID.

Categories

Select the categories to assign the imported events to. All events will be assigned to the selected categories. To assign events to different categories import them in groups of category related events.

Validating Your CSV File

If you're having difficulty importing your event data, and receiving an “error” message, you should validate your CSV files structure to ensure that delimiting characters (and other special characters) are being properly escaped. You can do this by performing a “Text Import” of your CSV file in your favorite spreadsheet editing software. If you do not have a favorite spreadsheet editing software you can download OpenOffice.org Calc for free at the link above.

NULL Vs. Empty String

For the purposes of importing events NULL data is processed differently then empty string data. For text fields (Title, Description, etc.) an empty string will function essentially the same as NULL data, however, for format specific data (like Time) an empty string is not the same as NULL.

For example, in your import data for the fields EventDate,StartTime,EndTime,AllDay a format of:

"2011-02-19","09:30:00","","0",

will tell the import utility to use a time of “blank string”. Which is invalid and will cause an import error.

"2011-02-19","09:30:00",,"0",

will tell the import utility to use an end time of NULL (for events with only a start time, or an All Day event).

If you receive an import error of “invalid data format for Time” this is why. Replace all "" time values with NULL (no text between enclosing commas, not the text string “NULL”).

Escape Characters

Double Quote ("), Single Quote/Apostrophe (') and Comma (,) characters will need to be escaped in your import data. This is accomplished by preceding each character with a backslash (\).

Escape Characters Imported

If you notice that your events are being imported with escape characters:

We're using this sentence as an example, of how your event content might be displayed in Helios with escape characters.

Remove the escape characters from your import data and it should resolve this issue.

iCalendar Import

Helios Calendar supports the import of standardized iCalendar files. To import iCalendar data open the .ics, .ical or .icalendar file in your favorite text editor and copy it's entire contents and paste them into the Event Data textarea. No editing to the iCalendar file is required to import the data and it may be imported in it's entirety.

Event Data

Helios will parse the VEVENT data of the iCalendar file and import the following data fields.

iCalendar Field	Imports As	Note
SUMMARY	Title
DESCRIPTION	Description
DTSTART	Event Date & Start Time	When Date Value is used without time an all day event is assumed.
DTEND	End Date (Series) & End Time	When Date Value is used without time no end time is assumed.
LOCATION	Location Name
URL	Contact URL

- When Start Date and End Date are different an Event Series will be created. Helios validates the dates to ensure the series begins on the earlier date and ends on the later. - When Start Time is not present an all day event is created. - When End Time is not present an event with no end time is created.

Categories

Select the categories to assign the imported events to. All events will be assigned to the selected categories. To assign events to different categories import them in groups of category related events.