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Bulk data upload to existing list as excel does not preserve dates/times in the Modified column?

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Bulk data upload to existing list as excel does not preserve dates/times in the Modified column? bkieft  2024-09-21 10:32
Status: Active
 

I am using the latest community labkey server version to store/modify a database (a list as a table with multiple fields). My list has the default columns, including Modified. But, when I do a bulk upload to the list, the Modified column defaults to the upload date/time instead of the date I have entered into the uploaded spreadsheet. For example, if I upload this:

Name Modified
project1 9/20/24 10:13
project2 8/18/24 8:54
project3 8/16/24 15:50

I would actually get this:

Name Modified
project1 9/21/24 10:15
project2 9/21/24 10:15
project3 9/21/24 10:15

LabKey documentation defined Modified column behavior during bulk upload as "A date/time value that indicates when a record was last modified. If this time is not explicitly specified in the imported dataset, LabKey will set it to the date/time that the data file was last modified.". So why when I explicitly specify the date/time am I not getting it to show up in the list table?

For reference, an abridged version of my sheet is attached - it's in excel format and the Modified column has the specific format of "Date".
 
 
mohara responded:  2024-09-23 15:34

Hi:

I'm not exactly sure where that documentation phrase came from originally, but it's not accurate. It's stating the negative of something that we believe has never have been true in the positive.... For datasets where that phrase was, or lists as you are using, both the "Created/CreatedBy" and "Modified/ModifiedBy" built in fields record actions on the row in LabKey - these are recorded in the audit log and not settable by a user during spreadsheet import.

To accomplish what you want, you could use a "Changed" field name instead of Modified. The built in fields would reflect when you imported/edited the rows, but the data would retain when (in your case) the "Parent Dir" was last changed/modified presumably outside the system. These built in fields are also hidden by default in the UI, so you could further ease things for your users by adding a "Label" on the "Changed" field so that it showed as "Modified" to the user.

Apologies for the confusion that phrase caused - I've updated to remove it. Hopefully this solution meets your needs.

--Molly