Overview & background
Fieldwire's task importer allows you to bring in multiple Fieldwire tasks at once. This is useful if you need to:
- Create bulk repeated tasks, e.g. if you're working on a residential project and need to create an inspection task in each unit.
- Import tasks from an Excel spreadsheet, such as a comments register from a subconsultant or client.
- Transfer tasks from one project to another.
Imported tasks can include:
- Checklists: you can choose to bring in the tasks pre-populated with checklists that have already been added to the Project Settings.
- Files: once you have added documents to the Files tab, you can attach these to tasks through the task importer.
- Attributes: tasks can also be added with all of the task attributes, including Category, Location, Start / End dates, Tags, Plan, etc. This will include Custom Task Attributes if they are enabled in the project.
Table of Contents
- How to import tasks
- CTS vs. Non-CTS projects
- CTA vs. Non-CTA projects
- Nested Locations
- X & Y Coordinates
- Related Tasks
- Assignee
- Errors
- Download Task Importer Template CSV file
How to Import Tasks
Navigate to the Tasks tab and select 'Import Tasks':
The task importer opens as a popup, with rows to define each task and columns for each task attribute you want to define (either one by one, or by copy-pasting from a spreadsheet, etc.):
Import Task Template - CSV file
Tips to speed up the process
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Use a Spreadsheet template The task importer is very similar to Fieldwire's CSV reports. We highly recommend using the Fieldwire CSV report to manipulate your data. From there, you can copy and paste into the Task Importer. |
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Double click Double clicking in a cell will give you a dropdown of options. This can quicken up the process of designating categories, adding checklists, etc. |
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Start typing Fieldwire will auto populate your options once you start typing within the Task Importer. This is particularly useful for when you are adding files to the tasks. |
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Drag down To assign an attribute to multiple rows, you can select the small square at the bottom right of the cell, and drag down to the desired row. |
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Tags Make sure to add a hashtag(#) before your tag in the description/hashtag column. Adding the hashtag(#) will let the system know it is a tag. You can add multiple tags by separating them with a comma. |
Additional Tips Regarding Importing Tasks and Checklists
As mentioned in the table above, you can import tasks with checklists already included by double-clicking into a cell under the "Checklist" column in the task importer and selecting the appropriate checklist in the dropdown of options.
However, if you are trying to import tasks with checklists included and you need to do this across multiple projects, there is a way to speed up this process even more.
Before you get started, you must have the following:
1. A project with tasks that have the correct checklists in those tasks.
2. A CSV export of the tasks from that project.
Once you have the CSV, it should look something like this:
Now, follow these steps to make the task importing process with checklists even faster:
1. Add a new column in your CSV; in my example, I added a new column called "Checklist Master List".
2. In that new column you added on the CSV, you'll need to add the names of the checklists as they appear in the "Manage checklists" button on the project Settings tab. As a reminder, each row represents one task. So, under your newly created column, you need to correspond the correct name of the checklist as it appears in the "Manage checklists" button to the task in that row.
2a. For example, if you were to click on the "Manage checklists" button and see the checklist, "Painting Room", you'll need to add "Painting Room" under the column you added to your CSV file to correspond with the appropriate task.
Note: You must create the checklists seen when clicking on the "Manage checklists" button on your own. These are not pre-loaded into your projects unless you are cloning a project. For more information on how to clone a project please see the following article: How do I clone projects?
3. Once you have done this for all of the tasks on your CSV where you need a checklist, you can now simply copy the pertinent information from your CSV and paste it into the task importer in Fieldwire as shown in the short video below.
4. After you have done this process once, you can easily do this again and again by copying the cells in the task importer to apply it to your other projects.
CTS vs Non-CTS projects
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CTS Custom Task Status will be available in all new projects. With this change, you will have to add the exact name of the status to the task importer. |
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Non-CTS project For projects without CTS, you could add 1 (priority 1), 2 (priority 2), or 3 (priority 3). |
CTA vs Non-CTA projects
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CTA Custom Task Attribute enabled projects will export CSV reports with all the custom attributes. Task importer will reflect each attribute as its own column. Similar to Custom Task Status you will need the exact name of your attribute in order to be accepted. |
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Non-CTA If a project doesn't enable Custom Task Attributes then the default Fieldwire task attributes will be in place. |
Nested Locations
Once nested locations have been created in the project, you can leverage the Task Importer to import several tasks with those nested locations. There are five location tiers, which are reflective of the location tiers imported, or manually added, under the 'Settings' tab.
To ensure the Tasks will be imported without errors, you'll need to include the location path up to the location you would like the task to adopt.
In the example below, tasks 1-5 will adopt the location outlined in Red:
The location tier structure in the Task Importer should reflect the order of the tiered locations in the CSV template that has been imported, or within the 'manage location' modal:
In the Task Importer, if you only reference location tiers 2-5, without filling out the contingent location path, you will not be able to import the tasks:
Tip: Leverage the CSV template when importing several tasks, as these tiers have, presumably, been correctly formatted.
X & Y Coordinates
Each task pin can be associated with X & Y coordinates on a plan sheet. This will place the task pin in that location on the sheet. To obtain a better idea of how Fieldwire uses X & Y coordinates - refer to the unique overlay below - you can upload this to your project, and compare it with an existing sheet for reference - download the overlay here (34 x 22 inches), or (30 x 42 inches).
Related Tasks
Export Related Tasks
When Generating a CSV task export, the Related tasks associated with the tasks will be included in Column V. These are the related task titles:
Associate Related Tasks
You can import one related task per row in the task importer - however, you cannot create new related tasks, meaning the related task will need to exist in the project. Double-click on one of the cells in the 'Related task name' column to view a drop-down menu of your project tasks:
If the related task name is not an exact match, the cell will turn red. The Related task name will need to be adjusted to be an exact match:
Assignee
After importing tasks, if the assignee isn't a user in your project, the assignee will receive an invitation and be added to your project as a member; the user will be added to your account as a project user. Please note that this could cause extra charges if you go over your license count. To learn more about overages, please see the following article:
Errors
Red cells indicate where categories, plans names, etc. are inconsistent between the old and the new projects. You can either just delete this information, or manually change it to match the new project. If there are many red cells, simply cancel the import and set up the new project with the same attributes before completing the import.
More information
Tutorial on Exporting and Importing Tasks