Hello Tadas,

SteveO and I have been analyzing the datahawk database files. Some questions and notes please.

1. Your included Word doc mentions that Birder1 = Tadas; Birder2 = Rima; and Birder3 = both. In your database, I find sightings (e.g. observations in DH) for 4 birders. 0 has 67 sightings, 1 has 28,825 sightings, 2 has 4 sightings, and 3 has 128 sightings. The only observer table I can find in the DBF (dBase) files that you sent is INITL, which only contains two observers: Tadas and Rima. And apparently nothing that identifies either as birder 1, 2, 3 or otherwise. I can assign all sightings for birder 0, 1, 2 and 3 to observer Tadas in BD. And then assign all sightings for birder 2 and 3 to Observer Rima in BD. Does that sound acceptable?
2. Trips in datahawk
   1. linked to by each individual sighting/observation.
   2. supplies redundant date and location already specified in each sighting
   3. although there are Trip objects in BD that do a very similar thing, I will not be able to transfer them into BD as it doesn't support Trip export/import. I can, add trip memos, time and location however to each sighting's comments. So that this information is not lost.
3. Your locations will transfer into BD, however, you will have to reassign them to the appropriate parent in BD. You currently have 21 customer defined locations. So this won't take longer than 10 minutes or so. For example, reassigning "Lincoln Park Bird Sanctuary" to its appropriate city, county or state - however you wish. It will initially come assigned to "Orphaned Locations" branch in the hierarchy.
4. You mention your codes that are analogous to BD's UDFs. However, there is no way to import UDFs in BD and therefore, I cannot create those and populate them for you. I can add them to each sighting's comments however if you like so that this data is not lost. I see about 25 such codes in the Special field of the observations table. Are these the codes you are talking about? In your document, you mention 4: L, P, M & V. "V" does not exist in this list, however the other 3 do along with about 22 others. 
5. Essentially, you will get your sightings data xfer'd intact. Along with the other data which doesn't transfer easily formatted into the comments field for each sighting, such as: "[Trip: 5/11/1992 Noon-3:30p - all trip comments] [Special Code: N]"

Your thoughts please.

Jeff

My replies below in bold italic:

1. Your included Word doc mentions that Birder1 = Tadas; Birder2 = Rima; and Birder3 = both. In your database, I find sightings (e.g. observations in DH) for 4 birders. 0 has 67 sightings, 1 has 28,825 sightings, 2 has 4 sightings, and 3 has 128 sightings. The only observer table I can find in the DBF (dBase) files that you sent is INITL, which only contains two observers: Tadas and Rima. And apparently nothing that identifies either as birder 1, 2, 3 or otherwise. I can assign all sightings for birder 0, 1, 2 and 3 to observer Tadas in BD. And then assign all sightings for birder 2 and 3 to Observer Rima in BD. Does that sound acceptable?

• 0 = seen by others but not by me or Rima on that trip. We can SKIP that one for conversion purposes.
• 1 + 3 = Tadas (not the “0”)
• 2 + 3 = Rima (not the “0”)

2. Trips in datahawk
   1. linked to by each individual sighting/observation.
   2. supplies redundant date and location already specified in each sighting
   3. although there are Trip objects in BD that do a very similar thing, I will not be able to transfer them into BD as it doesn't support Trip export/import. I can, add trip memos, time and location however to each sighting's comments. So that this information is not lost.

• Can you add the ‘sightings’ memos to the individual sighting? (fictional e.g. “saw 2 adults fighting off Beaver from nest” assigned to Gavia immer)?

3. Your locations will transfer into BD, however, you will have to reassign them to the appropriate parent in BD. You currently have 21 customer defined locations. So this won't take longer than 10 minutes or so. For example, reassigning "Lincoln Park Bird Sanctuary" to its appropriate city, county or state - however you wish. It will initially come assigned to "Orphaned Locations" branch in the hierarchy.

• Sounds perfect!

4. You mention your codes that are analogous to BD's UDFs. However, there is no way to import UDFs in BD and therefore, I cannot create those and populate them for you. I can add them to each sighting's comments however if you like so that this data is not lost. I see about 25 such codes in the Special field of the observations table. Are these the codes you are talking about? In your document, you mention 4: L, P, M & V. "V" does not exist in this list, however the other 3 do along with about 22 others. 
   1. That’ll work! & true, “V” does not exist, my mistake.
5. Essentially, you will get your sightings data xfer'd intact. Along with the other data which doesn't transfer easily formatted into the comments field for each sighting, such as: "[Trip: 5/11/1992 Noon-3:30p - all trip comments] [Special Code: N]"

• So code  “N” (seen on NEST) will not attach to the individual sighting?

Your thoughts please.

Jeff

Hi Tadas,

In short, I think we have a working solution then.

1. Sounds good
2. Yes
3. Good
4. Good
5. No. It WILL attach to each individual sighting.

Let me know if you have any more input/questions and I will get started.

Jeff

Jeff/SteveO,
Going to upload my latest mdb file now. As long as I can keep the work on the new Taxonomy "Fishes of the Caribbean" I have been building, I am not concerned about keeping the sighintgs datra. I've been holding off unitl I get the DHawk conversion.

So, if it is simple enought to do (not more work for you), I'd like to see only my DHawk files and the "Fishes of the Carib" taxonomy in the mdb you send back to me. A clean start will help me sort/understand how my DH stuff looks in BDiary.

Cheers, Tadas

Sounds good Tadas. I see that you uploaded your DB twice. I will use the second unless otherwise instructed.

Jeff

same file. sent 2x bec I thought the 1st one didnt go through since i didnt see a confirmation.