Importing entries whose races are in any order

The online registration form produced a file where the chosen races are written as a list (“500m, 1500m, Poursuites”), one column per day, and not always in the same column from one row to the next. The Extract the entered races option finds them from the event's races.

The example file

The Anneau de Starford autumn championship has, for each gender, a 500, 1000, 1500, 3000 and 5000 m, a mass start, a team pursuit and a team sprint, plus a 10 000 m Hommes; the races are called “500 m Femmes”, “500 m Hommes”, “Mass start Femmes”, “Poursuite par équipe Hommes”… The file inscriptions-formulaire.csv (fictitious, eleven columns, one empty row) is an excerpt:

Prénom	Nom	Sexe	Distances samedi	Distances dimanche	Longue distance Hommes
Lotte	Verhaegen	Female	500m, 1500m, Poursuites	1000m, 3000m (F), Poursuite Sprint, Mass Start
Thibault	Roncière	Male	500m, 1500m, 10 000m (H)	1000m, Mass Start	5000m
Saskia	Brouwers	Female	1500m	500m
Bastien	Courtemanche	Male	500m, 5000m (F)	1000m	3000m (H)
Yuna	Hasegawa	Female	Poursuites ; 1 500 m	1000 mètres \| 3 000 M (W)
Jasper	Molenkamp	Male	Relais, 500m
Eirik	Brekkestad	Male		Mass Start	10 000m (H)

Saskia's 500 m is in the Sunday column, everybody else's in the Saturday one; “3000m (F)” carries its gender; “10 000m” has a space; Yuna wrote “1 500 m” and “1000 mètres” with other separators. “Entered 500 m Femmes” columns could do nothing with this.

Step by step

Open the file
Entries tab → Import… → Choose a file….

Prénom, Nom, Sexe, Date de naissance and Club get their field from their header; the distance columns stay “(ignore)”: their header names no race.
Check “Extract the entered races”
Below the column list, check Extract the entered races.

EVENT itself picks the columns that hold races: “Distances samedi”, “Distances dimanche” and “Longue distance Hommes” get the Entered races (list to extract) field; the message says so (“Races looked for in: …”). The email, the club and the comment are not read.

Read the preview

The table below the option shows each value found, how many times, and the race used — per gender: a woman's “500m” goes to the 500 m Femmes, a man's to the 500 m Hommes. The values to review are at the top, in orange.

Import entries

Extract the entered races1

Races extracted (Distances samedi, Distances dimanche, Longue distance Hommes): 7 row(s) entered; … ; 500 m Femmes : 2 ; 500 m Hommes : 3 ; …
Values not used: « Poursuites » × 2 (ambiguous (2): Poursuite par équipe Femmes, Poursuite sprint Femmes) ; « 5000m (F) » × 1 (other gender than the athlete (1)) ; « Relais » × 1 (not recognised (1)).

Value found	Times	Race used	Race chosen by hand
Poursuites	2	ambiguous (2): Poursuite par équipe Femmes, Poursuite sprint Femmes	(automatic)
5000m (F)	1	other gender than the athlete (1)	(automatic)
Relais	1	not recognised (1)	(automatic)
500m	5	500 m Femmes (2) ; 500 m Hommes (3)	(automatic)
1500m	4	1500 m Femmes (3) ; 1500 m Hommes (1)	(automatic)
1000m	3	1000 m Femmes (1) ; 1000 m Hommes (2)	(automatic)

The extraction preview for inscriptions-formulaire.csv (excerpt).

The option, and the summary: columns read, entries per race, values not used.
One row per distinct value; values not used first.

Settle what is ambiguous
“Poursuites” could be the team pursuit or the team sprint: EVENT does not guess. In its row, Race chosen by hand → Poursuite par équipe Femmes.

The row becomes “Poursuite par équipe Femmes (2)”. The choice applies to the value, whatever the gender: a man who wrote “Poursuites” would go to the Poursuite par équipe Hommes.

Leave “5000m (F)” (Bastien, a man, ticked a women's race: check with him) and “Relais” (there is no relay race): they will not be imported. To drop a value without it being reported, choose (ignore this value).
Match, then import
Match with the database →.

“Race entries: … ; 500 m Femmes : 2 ; 500 m Hommes : 3 ; … ; Poursuite par équipe Femmes : 2 ; …”, then “Values not used: « 5000m (F) » … ; « Relais » …”. Each row's Details column says what was not used for it.

Import.

The import report and the log repeat the extraction summary. In the entries grid, Lotte is checked in the 500, 1000, 1500 and 3000 m Femmes, the mass start, the team pursuit and the team sprint Femmes.
The next file
The next file from the same form (same column headers) gets back the option, the source columns and the choice made for “Poursuites” by itself. Forget this format clears everything.

What EVENT recognises

Written in the file	Understood as
“500m, 1500m”, “500m ; 1500m”, “500m \| 1500m”, a line break	Two values (comma, semicolon, bar, slash, line break).
“10 000m”, “10000 m”, “10 km”, “1 500 mètres”, “500 M”	A distance, in metres (also mi, yd, laps).
“3000m (F)”, “(W)”, “(H)”, “(M)”, “Dames”, “Hommes”, “Women”	The race's gender. With no gender written: the athlete's.
“Mass Start”, “mass-start”, “Poursuite Sprint”, “Poursuite d'équipe”	The race name, ignoring case and accents, in the singular.
“Poursuites” with a team pursuit and a team sprint	Ambiguous: reported. With a “Poursuite” race and a “Poursuite sprint” race, it is “Poursuite” (the name with nothing more).
“5000m (F)” on a man's row	Other gender: reported, nothing is entered.
“500m” for an athlete with no gender	Ambiguous (500 m Femmes or Hommes?).
“Relais”, “800m” with no matching race	Not recognised: reported.

Reference: extracting the entered races, Import….