Importing Tasks

To import a list of tasks from a spreadsheet or PDF file into Projectal, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Projects screen by clicking Projects on the left sidebar.
2. Find the project you wish to work on and click on it to enter the project.
3. Click on Tasks or Gantt on the left sidebar to enter the Tasks view or Gantt view of the project.
4. Click the Import button on the Tasks or Gantt screen toolbar to display the Import Document screen.  Use the File tab and click the Browse button to select a file to import from your computer.  Or, use the URL tab and enter the URL for the file from a website, such as Google Sheets or Office 365.  

Tip: Supported file types for importing are XLS, XLSX, CSV, ODS and PDF.

Tip: When importing from a URL from websites like Google Sheets or Office 365, make sure that the sharing permissions of the URL are publicly accessible.  Otherwise, Projectal may not be able to read the contents of the URL.

Tip: When importing dates from your spreadsheets, make sure your dates are formatted as "YYYY-MM-DD" to ensure the year, month and day is interpreted correctly.

4. Once your file has been imported, you will see the Import Document screen.  This lets you choose the columns from the spreadsheet that you wish to import and assign the fields that the columns of data represent.

Click the Settings button to view the Import Task Settings screen.  This lets you adjust the way that Projectal prioritizes and auto detects the data of interest from spreadsheets.

Click the Auto Select button to let Projectal auto identify and select data of interest from the spreadsheet and then select the corresponding data fields.

Tip: When there are multiple tables of interest identified in the spreadsheet tab, you will see multiple wire frame borders drawn in the spreadsheet tab.  Click the Auto Select button multiple times to select and highlight each table of interest. 

Click the Select None button to remove Projectal's auto selections so that you can manually select data that you wish to import and assign the data fields.

Click the Set Parent button next to the data field so that you can link up a task or summary task as the child of a summary task.  This lets you create a hierarchy of your tasks based on the data contained in the spreadsheet.

Click the Auto Link button next to the data field so that you can associate a data field to the correct summary task.  By default, the nearest neighbor summary task is chosen.

Click the Attribute Of Row button next to the data field so you can specify it as a data field of the row of data.  

Click the Create Task From Column button next to the data field so you can specify the column of data to be created as separated tasks with the name of the task derived from the column header.  

5. After you have selected the columns and assigned the field to these columns, then click the Preview button.  This lets you view the data prior to importing into Projectal.

6. On the Preview screen, you can select items and click the Delete button if you wish to remove certain data prior to importing.  You can also click the Option menus in the column header to display the Filter icon.  Clicking the Filter icon displays a popup menu that filters the list of data.

For example, if you have errors or blank entries listed in Import screen, you can use the Filter popup menu items to just list all the data with errors or blank entries and then select all these rows of data and delete them by clicking Delete.

Tip: Click on the Options menu in the column header in the Preview screen to show other data fields for tasks that you may wish to fill in prior to importing.  This lets you enter data values for other data fields of the tasks and summary tasks being imported.

7. Once you are happy with the data, then click the Import button and Projectal will import all the displayed data as new tasks into Projectal and display them in the Tasks screen or Gantt screen.

Tip: If you are unsure of the columns of data you should put into your Excel XLS file so that it can be imported successfully, then we suggest you export the current list of items in Projectal into an Excel XLS file and you can view the columns that Projectal has exported.  They will provide a guide of what fields will be imported.