Any News on Front-End Import Capability?

[eliw13]

Good morning,

In your README it says that front-end import capability is on the roadmap for future enhancements to the KTL. I was wondering if there has been any further news on this? We have an Asset Management app that leverages many features of the KTL like auto-login for an iPad kiosk, saved filters, hiding columns, etc. However, one flaw we're running into is that when they want to do mass move records or mass imports of large asset purchases, they must send the file to us (the builder) for us to import it into the backend.

Thank you for any insight to this front-end import feature!

[cortexrd]

Hi @eliw13,

When I wrote this, back in 2021, I thought it would be cool to migrate the Morbern's custom code to the KTL, and add a few additional features (keyword syntax) to map the columns from the Excel file to the table's fields. But then, there's all the validation process that is non-trivial and quite error prone. Imagine all the uses cases where things can go wrong! The setup can also be a bit complex, especially if you need to update existing records, vs simply adding new ones.

All this to say that, when I proposed the _import keyword project to Morbern's administrator, he decided that this wasn't important enough to fund it, because they already have what they needed and they won't need any other import in the future.

I decided to leave the text in the main page to show all users that this was possible, in case someone wants to fund the development of the feature, as it happened for a few keywords. If you're interested, we're talking about around $2-3K USD roughly to develop it.

Also, I'm not sure, but I think that Knack has mentioned they might integrate this as part of the Next Gen platform. But when...?!

Norm

[eliw13]

Hi Norm,

That makes sense, I appreciate the background and insight! That does sound quite complicated and I could see how generalizing an _import keyword to fit all Knack apps' needs/use cases would get a bit convoluted.

I know Knack has announced they are working on this, and I sure hope they release it soon!

Thanks again for your response!

Best,
Eli W