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About importing ASCII files

When importing ASCII files you must first identify if the records in the file are delimited or fixed length. This enables the import wizard to correctly parse each line of data being imported.

Note: If you open the ASCII file using a text editor (such as NotePad), you can see records are simply lines of text.

Delimited records

These records are lines of text, where each value is separated by a delimiter. A delimiter can be a character such as a comma, tab space or slash. For instance:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

Fixed length records

These records are lines of text, where each value is defined within a set number of characters. For instance:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
o	n	e		t	w	o			t	h	r	e	e		f	o	u	r
	o	n	e			t	w	o		t	h	r	e	e		f	o	u	r

In this example, the:

First value is defined within the first 4 character positions (1-4)
Second value is defined within the next 5 character positions (5-9)
Third value is defined within the next 6 character positions (10-15)
Fourth value is defined within the next 5 character positions (16-20)

Notes

When importing a text file into Time, it is a good idea to first examine the text file in a word processing or spreadsheet application.
Ensure that there are no abnormal characters within the file such as "{", "}", "*", "/", "\", or "~".
The import works best if the file is saved in a tab, comma, or space-delimited format.
In addition, the text file should contain only time and billing data. All of the data such as column headings, company names or footers should be removed.