Import and export

Your locations and screens as an Excel workbook. Download it, change forty rows at once, send it back — and see what the file would do before anything changes.

Why it existsA form is the right tool for one screen and the wrong one for forty. A network usually exists as a list before it exists here — the installer’s, the landlord’s, last year’s media plan — and typing it in again, one form at a time, is how a postcode ends up on the wrong shop. The workbook goes both ways: what the account has comes out as rows, and rows go back in as what the account has.

Where it is#

Import / Export is on Locations and on Screens. Both open the same window, and one workbook holds both. Anybody who can see locations or screens can download it; importing needs the right to change them.

Locations → Import / Export

Download

Locations and screensEmpty template

Import

Choose a workbook

Locations and screens is everything the account has, one row each. Change what you need and import the same file.
Empty template is the same columns with nothing in them, for starting from a list of your own.

The workbook#

It has three sheets: Locations, Screens and Guide. The column names are the same in every language, because they are what the file is read by; Guide explains each of them in the language you use the dashboard in.

Columns written in grey are for reading. A screen’s code, its status, when it last reported, how many screens a location has. They are not imported, and changing them changes nothing.
Some cells offer a list. Country, venue type, platform, orientation: choose from the list in the cell, and spelling is never why a row is refused.
Columns of your own are left out. A column the workbook did not come with is not read, and you are told which ones were not.

New rows, and rows you already have#

ID is the number we gave a location or a screen, and it alone decides what a row does.

The Screens sheet

NameIDLocation IDLocation

Westfield — Entrance TV41238Westfield London1

Westfield — Food court382

Arndale — WindowArndale3

1It has an ID, so it is a screen you already have. It becomes what the row says.

2No ID, so it is new. Location ID puts it in a location you already have.

3New as well, in a location that is new in this same file. That location has no ID yet, so it is named.

An empty cell means empty. Clearing a description removes it. A column you delete from the file is left as it is in the account.
Nothing is ever removed. A row you delete from the file stays in the account.
A screen stays where it is. An import does not move a screen to another location, and a row that tries is refused.
An ID is ours to give. Leave the cell empty for anything new. A number of your own is refused if nothing has it, and changes the wrong row if something does.

What you are shown first#

Choosing a file changes nothing. It is read, and you are shown what it would do: how many locations and screens are new, how many change and how many stay as they are — and, for each row that changes, what it changes from and to.

Import / Export → What this file would do

NewChangedAs they are

Locations10141

Screens2134

WhereNameWhat changes

Screens · row 2Westfield — Entrance TVOpens: 07:00 → 06:302

Screens · row 38Arndale — WindowNew3

ImportCancel

1Nothing has been written yet. This is what the file would add, what it would change and what it would leave alone.

2A row that changes says what it changes from, and what to.

3A row with no ID is new.

A row that cannot be imported is listed under Cannot be imported, with its sheet, its row, its column and what is wrong with it. One such row stops the whole file: correct it in the workbook and choose the file again.

Under Worth knowing is what does not stop the file but you would want to have been told: a new location with the name of one you already have, or a row that your monetisation partner keeps in step and will write over.

Import then does all of it or none of it. No file is ever half in.

If the account changed while you were reading

Somebody else may change a screen between the moment you are shown the list and the moment you press Import. The import is then refused, nothing is changed, and you are shown what the file would do now.

Photos#

The Photo column takes the address of an image, starting with https://. After the import the image is copied into your own storage, so the photo is still there when the site it came from is rearranged. PNG, JPEG, WebP or GIF, up to 4 MB. One that cannot be fetched stays as a link to where it is.

Limits#

2,000 rows on each sheet, and 5 MB. A larger network is imported in parts.
The screen limit counts the whole file. A file that adds more screens than the account has room for is refused whole, and says what the limit would have to be. See Billing.
Every new screen is given its code. Download the workbook again after the import: the Screen code column is the list to hand to whoever installs the screens. See Screens.

Example — Twelve cafés from one list

Crustum opens twelve cafés across Manchester, three screens in each. Paste the twelve addresses into Locations of the empty template and the thirty-six screens into Screens, each naming its café in the Location column. One import later the account has all of them, and the workbook you download next carries thirty-six codes for the installer.