Import issues into BIMcollab Nexus from a BCF or CSV file

Import issues into BIMcollab Nexus from a BCF or CSV file

Import issues from a BCF file

Follow these steps to import a BCF file in BIMcollab Nexus:

  1. In BIMcollab Nexus, choose the project in which you want to import issues
  2. Go to the Issues tab of the project
  3. Click on 'Import'



  4. Click on 'Browse', and choose the BCF file you want to import
  5. If necessary, select default properties to add to the issues when missing
  6. Click 'Import'
  7. The file will be imported. Existing issues will be updated and new issues will be added to the project. A history of the performed imports will be displayed on the Import page.



When importing BCF files, the following data from existing issues will not be copied:
  1. Area
  2. Custom fields
  3. Change log
  4. Visibility
  5. Links to a Navisworks clash test
These values will need to be created and reassigned to the issues manually. A default value can be chosen for these fields during the import of the BCF file.

Import issues from a CSV file

In some cases, you may need to import a list of issues, from a source other than a BCF file, into BIMcollab Nexus. In that case, the easiest way is to save your issue data into a CSV file. Creating a CSV file can be done using Microsoft Excel or any other spreadsheet applications such as Google Sheets or Numbers.

Follow these steps to import a CSV file in BIMcollab Nexus:

  1. Download one of our template files (Template to import issues) from the BIMcollab download page. You can now open the file using your preferred spreadsheet application and start entering the data.

    While entering your data you must follow the following rules:
    1. Each row represents an individual issue
    2. Using the column names in the defined order is mandatory
    3. Additional columns appended to the list are ignored
    4. The column names are not case sensitive
    5. All cells should be in TEXT format
    6. All dates must be entered as dd-mm-yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd (But leading zero’s are not mandatory so both 04-05-2016 and 4-5-2016 are valid entries.)
    7. Users which are entered in the columns 'Creator', 'Assigned to' and 'Approval', need to be entered using their unique email address as defined in BIMcollab
    8. The type, priority and status fields must correspond with those defined in your BIMcollab Nexus
    9. Any images URLs must refer to an image in JPEG, PNG, GIF or BMP format
    10. Any URL must be accessible from our servers so paths to local files or your intranet are not supported
    11. If multiple email addresses needed to be added as "approvers", they must be separated by commas

  2. Once all of the data is entered, you can now save the file as a CSV file:
    1. In Numbers, go to "File> Export to> CSV"
    2. In Microsoft Excel, go to "File> Save As> CSV" (Read the more detailed article on the Microsoft site.)
    3. In Google Sheets, go to "File> Download> Comma Separated Values (.csv, active sheet)"

  3. In BIMcollab Nexus, choose the project in which you want to import issues
  4. Go to the Import tab of the project
  5. Click on 'Browse', and choose the CSV file you want to import
  6. If necessary, select default properties to add to the issues when missing
  7. Click 'Import'

When importing issues via CSV there are a number of things one must be aware of:

  1. An CSV issue report from BIMcollab cannot directly be imported as the file structure is different. Please use the template to import issues.
  2. Every issue imported will be added to the project as a new issue. It is not possible to update existing issues when using CSV files.
  3. When a due date and a cause of delay are defined, a comment will be created on this due date containing the cause of delay.
  4. When a modification date and a comment on modification are defined, a comment will be created on this modification date containing the comment.
  5. Users in the list are mapped to existing users in BIMcollab based on email-address.
  6. When a new user is found in the list then that user will be created in BIMcollab Nexus and added to the project. They will then need to be approved by the project leader or the space administrator before they can log into BIMcollab and work on the project.
  7. Microsoft Excel is not able to create CSV files using Unicode encoding. Therefore any special characters or non-latin characters may be lost.

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