Importing locations

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Locations are the labelled places in your warehouse where you store stock. Locations can be created individually (see here) or can be created automatically when you import stock (see here). The functionality to import locations described here will save you a lot of time if you need to put a lot of locations into mSupply separately from importing stock.

As with the other import features of mSupply, this import uses a tab delimited text file (easily produced by exporting a spreadsheet from Excel or other spreadsheet programme). The columns that must be present in the file and their contents are as follows:

All columns must be present in the import file but only the first 2 (Location code and Store code or name) are mandatory. If either of these fields do not have values entered then the location will be ignored.

Column number	Column letter	Field	Description
1	A	Location code	The code of the location. This is used to identify and select the location throughout mSupply and is the label you apply to the location in your warehouse e.g. “A01” or “A01.03.C”. This field is mandatory; if it's not present the location will be ignored.
2	B	Store code or name	The code or name of the store the location is to be created in. You can see the list of store names and their codes currently in your copy of mSupply by going to Special > Show stores… This field is mandatory; if it's not present the location will be ignored.
3	C	Location description	For your reference only, a longer description of the location e.g. “Aisle A, shelf 1, position C”. This field is optional.
4	D	Volume	The start date for the period to which the budget belongs in the format dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy (whichever your copy of mSupply is using).
5	E	Priority	The end date for the period to which the budget belongs in the format dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy (whichever your copy of mSupply is using). The budget period start and end dates must match an existing budget period period in mSupply (set up using Budgets), otherwise an error will be generated.
6	F	Is summary location	Whether the location is a summary location that cannot hold stock. “y”, “yes”, “t” or “true” is interpreted as true, anything else (including nothing) is interpreted as false.
7	G	Location type	.
8	H	Parent location code or description	.

An empty Excel spreadsheet containing these columns for you to use as a template is here: location_import_template.xlsx

When you have created the import text file go to File > Import > Import customer budgets and select your text file. You will be show the following window:

Now choose the import settings to match your file:

First line contains column headers: check this if the first row in your text file contains the column descriptions. If checked, mSupply will ignore the first line of the file.

Remove quote characters on import: check this if fields in your file is surrounded by quote (“ or ') characters. If checked, mSupply will attempt to remove them from each field.

And select how duplicates are to be handled (a duplicate is a row which matches another line in the file or a budget already in mSupply):

Skip the duplicate without asking: The duplicate record is ignored completely

Stop the import: mSupply will stop importing form the file if it detects a duplicate. Any budgets already imported will be kept but no further lines in the file will be processed.

Update customer budget: The budget already in mSupply will be updated with the new details found in the file and the import will continue.

You can also click the Next and Previous buttons to see a preview of what mSupply will import on each row from your file. This can be useful for showing differences in the contents of your file and what mSupply is expecting.

When you're ready to carry out the import, click on the OK button. mSupply will carry out the import and tell you how many lines were imported, how many budgets already in mSupply were modified and if there were any errors. You can see more details by viewing the log (see The log).

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