It can often come in handy to prepare Support table data outside of WRDB and import it. For example, you may already have a spreadsheet containing a list of stations and their locations you want to use for this WRDB Project. To import data into a Support table, select File | Project Management | Import Support Tables... As with data import operations described here, you will be prompted to select an import file or table and then map the columns in it to the desired field names in the Support table of interest. The field names for each Support table can be found in named groups in the Field_Mapping_List (for example, the group named "Station Fields" contains field names for the Stations table). The field names for all tables can be found in the description of the Database Structure as well as Field Mapping.
Sometimes you are provided data files that contain water quality observations as well as additional Support records. Consider the flat file containing these fields:
WRDB allows you to import data from a single import file and add records to multiple tables. That is, the import file is parsed so that the Station_ID, PCode, Data & Time, and Observation values are imported into the current Working table, the Station_ID and Station_Name are appended to the Stations table, and PCode and PCode_Name are appended to the PCodes table--all in a single pass.
In some situations, you may find it convenient to export a partially complete Support table, open it in Excel for editing, and then reimport into your project. To do this, follow these steps:
Select File | Explore Database, select Support Tables from the drop-down list, select the Support table of interest (e.g., Stations), then click the Export Data button and export the data to, say, Stations.txt.
Open the text file using a text editor or Excel.
Edit the contents, making sure to not insert additional columns.
Back at the Database Explorer with the Stations table still selected, click the Import Data button.