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Importing data to LimeSurvey database

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7 years 4 months ago #144587 by pnickel
Importing data to LimeSurvey database was created by pnickel
Is there any way to load questions "en masse", rather than pasting them in one at a time? I have a spreadsheet with 1600 questions that I want to have available to put into surveys. At about a minute a piece, that would take me over 25 hours of to put them all in. Yet it should not be that hard to import records into a database file, since the questions are stored in a database file somewhere.
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7 years 4 months ago #144591 by DenisChenu
Replied by DenisChenu on topic Importing data to LimeSurvey database

Assistance on LimeSurvey forum and LimeSurvey core development are on my free time.
I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH member, professional service on demand , plugin development .
I don't answer to private message.
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7 years 4 months ago #144639 by pnickel
Replied by pnickel on topic Importing data to LimeSurvey database
Thank you.

Can I suggest an improvement to the Manual?

First, a search on "import" got mostly "important". But a search on "import " failed to bring up the page you referenced.

More importantly, the section covering how to add questions ( manual.limesurvey.org/Adding_a_question#Importing_a_question ) says nothing about Excel files--only csv, that it describes as outdated, and native format, .ls, which is in a very hard-to-use xml format.

There is no link from this section on importing to the Excel-format page you referenced me to.

PS. While on the subject of the manual. That same page ( manual.limesurvey.org/Adding_a_question#Importing_a_question ) has a section on "Field Descriptions" that supposedly describes to a new user (like me) what each of the fields on the question-entry page. HOWEVER, many, many fields on that page are not listed here! (And I have no idea if they are important or not or how to use them. Many are text boxes--not pull-downs. What text is needed and how exactly identical does it have to be every time and where is what I enter stored, so that I know what I have previously entered so I can be consistent?

I have written a number of manuals for various purposes. One thing I have learned is that a manual writer needs to think like someone who is totally clueless about how a program operates. (I think back to my first programing class in FORTRAN and how I could not get my FORTRAN programs to run because I did not know JCL and the first card submitted in any program was a JCL card that had to be coded perfectly. I was learning FORTRAN, but no one bothered to first teach me JCL. I had to learn that from the operator at the computer center.) A lot of times a new user does not know about the things that a seasoned user assumes "everyone" knows about. It may be that this Excel import is one of those.
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7 years 4 months ago #144644 by DenisChenu
Replied by DenisChenu on topic Importing data to LimeSurvey database
Hi,

Our manual is a wiky : if you have an account on forum : same account can be used in wiki (if not : send a private message to c_schmitz)

About TSV/Excel import : it's not to import question by question : you can only import whole survey in this way.

But with exporting one survey with one question : you see how the file must be.

Regards,
Denis

Assistance on LimeSurvey forum and LimeSurvey core development are on my free time.
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