Import start and end dates

By adding start and end dates of each work order is reflected in the Gantt chart, and there are different ways of updating the start and end dates for the work orders. If you are only updating it for one or two work orders, it might be easiest to do it manually. This is covered in a separate article. In this article, we will cover how to bulk update the start and end dates for work orders by using the Excel importer. 

Supported date formats

Our Excel import tool, supports several date formats. The supported formats are "YYYY-MM-DD", "DD-MM-YYYY", "YYYY/MM/DD", "DD/MM/YYYY", "YYYY.MM.DD" and "DD.MM.YYYY".

If when importing a different date format appears in the importer, have a look at this article for a step-by-step guide on how to correct it. 

How to update dates by importing from Excel

The start and end dates for a work order is a part of that work order's key information, and as such, this information is handled on the page "Work orders". Start by going to that page. 

On the top of the page, you will see a three-dotted icon next to the search field. This icon is a menu with additional actions available to you. Click on it and select "Export" to get an Excel export of the work orders which you will use as a template to easily update the dates. It is not necessary to use this template, but it makes the import easier as the IDs are already included in it.

Open up the Excel sheet, where you will see one row per work order, and one column for all the different types of information available to change via import. 

Before you continue, make sure you delete the column called "Description". This is because if you update this information via import, it will update the description for each work order without any formatting, overriding any previous formatting you might have added before. 

You can now update the columns Start and End dates in the Excel, and once you are done remember to save the file before continuing. 

On Maindeck, go back to the menu with your additional options, and now select "Import". Follow the step by step guide, and once completed all your dates will be updated.