Data Format Guidelines
Consistency in formatting data is crucial to any data management system. Using the same format for data within the columns of all Data Sets will ensure that the data will import more consistently into Specify, making it more searchable and usable.
Column Headings
Use the title of the field as an indication of what sort of data that field will accept; e.g. all count and number fields should contain only numeric data, Yes/No fields should contain only a Yes or Y, No or N.
Use consistent formats and data standards for one-to-many relationships that are represented by a cumulative number of the same headings, e.g. Collector1, Collector 2 and PrepType1, PrepType2 etc.
First Name and Last Name fields for agents should ideally contain only this information. If other information is desired (such as title or middle initials) it can be added but should be positively identifiable and separated to ensure easy parsing.
Use specialized data entry standards in the required fields below.
Catalog Numbers
Catalog Numbers in the WorkBench need to match the format that is used in the Specify database.
Dates
Dates are accepted as day month year, month day year, year month day or partial varieties of these. For partial dates, zero’s should be used in the format selected.
| Months as 1-12 |
| Months as 01-12 |
| Days as 1-31 |
| Days as 01-31 |
| Years as 00-99 |
| Years as 1900-9999 |
Allowable separators include a space, / (slash), .(period), or - (dash).
Partial Dates are allowed for Collecting Event Start, Collecting Event End, Cataloged Date, Determination Date and Preparation Date in both the uploader and in the Specify database. Dates are uploaded in the US format (month, day, year) and allow zeros or dashes for unknown month or day. Any dashes or zeros for month or day are stored as '01' in the Specify database, which is used for search results.
00 --- 1968 (= 1968 in the form but 01 01 1968 in the database) 00-----1968 (= 1968 in the form but 01/01/1968 in the database) 00 00 1999 (= 1999 in the form but 01/01/1999 in the database) 11.00.1989 (= 11/1999 in the form but 11/01/1989 in the database) 00 11 1989 (this is invalid) 11 12 1989 (= 11/12/1989 on the form and in the database) 00/---/2000 (= 2000 in the form but 01/01/2000 in the database) 00 00 04 (= 2004 in the form but 01/01/2004 in the database) 00-00-04 (= 2004 in the form but 01/01/1968 in the database) 04 00 04 (= 04/2004 in the form but 04/01/1968 in the database) 04-00-04 (= 04/2004 in the form but 04/01/1968 in the database) 1989/00/00 (= 1989 in the form but 01/01/1989 in the database) 1999/01/00 (= 1999 in the form but 01/01/1999 in the database) 1999 00 00 (= 1999 in the form but 01/01/1999 in the database) 1999 02 00 (= 02/1999 in the form but 01/01/1989 in the database)
Valid separators are '.' (period), '/' (forward slash), ' ' (space),and '-' (dash).
Latitude and Longitude
N, S, E, W formats are both accepted as hemisphere information.
Both d and ° are accepted for degrees, while ' and " are accepted for minutes and seconds. A space is also accepted in place of or together with all of these.
Decimal places for decimal degrees, minutes and seconds are unlimited. However, when using the Lat Long Converter, these will be truncated to 4 decimals for decimal degrees and two decimals for minutes and seconds. Therefore make sure that you have included the LatText1 and LongText1 fields to preserve your original input values.
Some examples of accepted formats follow:
DD.DDDD (32.7619)
DD MMMM (32. 45.714
DD MM SS.SS (32 45 42.84)
DD.DDDD N/S/E/W (32.7619 N)
DD MM.MM N/S/E/W (32 45.714 N)
DD MM SS.SS N/S/E/W (32 45 42.84 N)