Exporting data through Recorder 3.3

Recorder 3.3 allows you to export information to other recording centres but actually making it work the way you want can be a little tricky. For instance, the ’Record Selection’ window gives you the ability to select on many criteria but doesn’t allow for two ’export-critical’ options - the date the record was entered/amended and whether it is an original record or one passed on to you by someone else. With this in mind I have constructed a ’Select’ command that you can type in on the ’Filters -> Select’ window to generate a list of records suitable for exporting:

SELECT RECORDS WITH SP_CODE STARTING "6447*079" AND WITH DATE_UPDATED GT "01 JAN 2000" AND WITH IMPORT_CENTRE EQ ""

This example can be modified once you gain more confidence with the system - or entirely new Selects can be easily created using the ’EasyWriter’ options. So to analyse the statement:

• SP_CODE STARTING "6447*079" means select only Tachinidae
• DATE_UPDATED GT "01 JAN 2000" means only those records created or amended since the given date - this can be amended each time to ensure you don’t send any duplicates.
• IMPORT_CENTRE EQ "" means only original records - not ones that might have been imported from other copies of Recorder 3.3.

Just run the Select, Save the List (any name will do), Get the list and then select ’Reports -> Recorder export / import -> Export’. Make a blank folder somewhere on your disk (I use a folder called Export in the \Recorder folder) and fill in the path name when Recorder asks for it. After it has exported the data you will be left with a folder containing lots of files. You can either attach these to an email directly or a much better idea is to use a program like WinZIP (available free on the Internet or on many computer magazine cover disks) to group them together and compress them in size. I prefer the latter system because it reduces the time taken to email the files and you know you haven’t missed any off!