How do I check auto-import errors and their details?

Question

How do I check auto-import errors and their details?

Answer

There are a few ways to that you can check auto-import errors and learn about their details to troubleshoot. One note: if you want full details of auto-import errors make sure your auto-import tool has full Logging enabled ("Log additional diagnostic information"). This is enabled by navigating to System>Data Integration>Auto-import>Edit>Logging.

Administrator Home Page System Errors in Announcements Area

As an Administrator you can view System Errors on the Home page. There is a scroll bar to the left of the System Errors box. Scroll down the System Errors box  to view the maximum number of errors you have enabled in the system.

Typical errors listed here will be auto-import errors such as:

• No permission found with name xyz
• No template found with name xyz

Pacific Timesheet can only process records if property values are valid. A valid property is one that is setup and named in Pacific Timesheet. 

For example, a timesheet template might be named "Hourly" in Pacific Timesheet. If the third party system sends the timesheet template value as "Non-exempt timesheet," this property value will not be recognized will cause the record to not import and generate the error "No timesheet template found with name Non-exempt timesheet. 

System Event Log Reports

Your system will be setup with a Auto-import system event log report.

• Navigate to the Reports>System Event Log report
• Run the report with the Import event filter enabled.
• If "Log additional diagnostic information" is enabled, you will see summary and detailed records of auto-imports. A summary line with performance data of an auto-import, detail records for each line that has an error and what that error is).   

Using FTP Client to examine import files 

A less efficient and more time consuming method to troubleshoot import file errors is to access and download these files and examine them manually.

• Install an FTP client on your computer (e.g. Filezilla) 
• Use FTP credentials provided by Pacific Timesheet to setup access to your auto-import directory. If you need assistance setting up this FTP client, reach out to Pacific Timesheet technical support or your customer relationship manager for help.
• Open up your FTP client, login and connect to your Pacific Timesheet FTP site.  
• Your auto-import directory will be setup with a Root directory, and a /import subdirectory.
• When connected, navigate on the remote site (the right side of the screen) to the /import directory
• Review the import files in the sub-directory
• Files that have more than 100 errors will stop running and have their extensions changes to .err
• Files that have fewer errors will complete their import and have their extensions changed to .fin
• For files you want to open and inspect, download that file to a local computer directory, change the extension from .fin back to .csv, and open the file.
• When examining these files, remember that the error description will not be in the itself. You are manually confirming the invalid values in particular fields that generated the errors.  

Types of Auto-import Errors

Some fields in a record will be text data and will not cause errors. Pacific Timesheet will just accept and update these fields with text data. Many other fields have values for system objects which are inspected and validated by the auto-import tool to make sure the object name is an exact match. 

List of record fields for system objects that might generate errors

For Employee records

• Timesheet template
• Security permission level
• Policy
• Locale
• Time zone
• Reporting group
• Permission group
• Crew
• Approver name
• Approver Id

For Work Item records (project, phase, task, etc.)

• Project
• Phase
• Tasks

For Group records

• Employee
• Permission

For Asset (Equipment with rates) records

• Employee
• Permission
• Class
• Unit of Measure
• Unit Amount
• Unit Bill Amount

If your third party data source is generating invalid record field values, you will need to contact those system administrators to correct those errors.