The Tracker Importer

The Tracker Importer is a powerful tool that does more than just read a CSV data file and create new trackers. The Tracker Importer also acts as a way to update, edit and even delete trackers just by uploading a single CSV file.

This allows people with many trackers to effectively manage their trackers externally with tools like Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc or even Notepad.

1. The Import Process

The import process consists of three steps:

1. UPLOAD - Set import options and upload a CSV Data File.
2. REVIEW - A review stage to confirm that the data file has been correctly read.
3. IMPORT AND SUMMARY - The real import, which leads to a summary report showing the results of the import process.

2. Features of the Tracker Importer

1. Allows the creation of multiple trackers into a single user account
2. Allows for the edition of multiple trackers
3. Allows for the deletion of multiple trackers
4. Attempts to set the desired 'checks per month' but if there are not sufficient available on the acocunt, trackers will be set to the 'paused/suspended' state.
5. Allows for an email distribution list to be defined and applied to a tracker
6. Allows for trackers to be set to 'running' or 'suspended'

3. The CSV Data File - format and structure

The Tracker Importer is quite sensitive to the format of the CSV file. For this reason it is a good idea to download the demo template CSV file and open it using a text editor like Notepad to see how the data must be formatted.

The format itself is a pretty standard 'CSV' (Comma-separated Values) format which consists of a single header row followed by multiple data rows. Each individual data item (including the header column names) should be surrounded by double-quotation marks (as can be seen in the demo template file). Within a row, each data item should be seperated by a single comma outside of the quotation marks (eg: "some data 1", "some data 2", "some data 3"). Each data record or row must be on its own line of the text file.

4. Complete CSV Data File Reference

The following table details all the possible columns a CSV data file can have and their allowable values

CSV field name	Description	Permitted Values	Mandatory?	Value if omitted
import_mode	The specific operation to perform on the given tracker data row.	[CREATE|UPDATE|DELETE]	NO	CREATE
tracker_api_key	A unique ID which identifies a single tracker. These are generated on tracker creation. This must be supplied to perform either a UDPDATE or DELETE operation.	A valid tracker 'api key' (eg: "f2t12345abcde")	NOT for CREATE operations	N/A
tracker_label	A friendly name to help identify the tracker	Any text upto 40 characters long	YES	N/A
tracker_group	The name of the group to which this tracker should belong	Any text upto 25 characters long	NO	(empty)
tracker_url	The web page URL from which changes will be tracked.	A valid URL with upto 500 characters	YES	N/A
tracker_source_content	The type of content being tracked.	[1|2|3] 1="Web Page" 2="File" 3="Plain Text"	NO	1 (Web Page)
tracker_css_selector	The CSS Selector used to extract content from the tracker_url web page	A valid CSS Selector upto 500 characters	NO	"document"
tracker_data_type	The format the tracker content should be converted to.	[text|number]	NO	text
tracker_email_list	A single email address or a comma-delimited list of email addresses.Upto 400 characters	[text|number]	NO	text
tracker_state	Used to specify which state the tracker should be set to.	[running|suspended]	NO	running

Currently the Importer does not support all possible tracker options. If you require the Importer to support more tracker features, please get in touch and we will update the system.