An AQTS field data plugin for AQTS 2019.4-or-newer systems, which can read many CSV files of different shapes.

• Install the plugin using the System Config page on your AQTS app server.

Choose the appropriate version of the plugin for your AQTS app server.

See the plugin wiki for CSV format and configuration information.

Test drive the plugin here, from the comfort of your browser!

In this context, 'tabular' means data shaped like a database table. A sequence of rows with a common number of columns per row. This is also referred to as a 'flat file'.

Most CSV files follow this general format:

• An optional preface section, with a few lines of free-form text.
• An optional header row, with one named heading per column.
• Zero or more data rows.

The Tabular plugin can parse these types of files, with some configuration guidance provided by you.

Please see the plugin wiki for a detailed description of the configuration format and examples.

The class diagram gives an idea of the property names which can be set.

If you had the following CSV file representing air temperature field visit readings from various locations in your network:

The Location, The Time, The Temperature
LOC1, 2020-Jun-12 12:35, 20.5
LOC2, 1988-Feb-8 15:10, -3.5

Then this configuration description would parse those rows into air temperature field visit readings:

Location = '@The Location'
Time = '@The Time'

[Reading]
Value = '@The Temperature'
ParameterId = 'TA'
UnitId = 'degC'

The format of the configuration description looks a bit like older Windows INI files, but is actually the TOML format, but you don't really need to understand the inner workings of TOML. Instead you'll just need to read through the wiki examples and find something similar to your data and modify it from there.

The TOML syntax is quite forgiving and yet still concise. It is much easier for non-programmers to edit vs. more widely used formats like JSON or XML, which can both be quite finicky for humans.

The plugin can support many different configurations at once, with each configuration stored in a separate file.

The plugin will quickly try each configuration until it finds one that matches your data, and then it will parse the CSV file according to the configuration tules.

An AQTS server configuration directory is needed to store all the active configuration files.

The %ProgramData%\Aquatic Informatics\AQUARIUS Server\Configuration\TabularCSV folder is where you should place your configuration files.

There will already be an existing %ProgramData%\Aquatic Informatics\AQUARIUS Server folder on an AQTS app server, so you will just need to create:

• the Configuration subfolder
• the Configuration\TabularCSV subfolder

This folder will remain untouched when you upgrade or uninstall the Tabular plugin, so you won't lost your special configuration.

For AQTS 2020.2-and-newer, the configuration files can be stored as global settings, which can be configured using the System Config application.

This will be much more convienient for quick changes, since you will not require direct access to the app server's file system.

The Tabular plugin can be consumed by the Field Visit Hot Folder Service, which executes plugins outside of AQTS, and only uploads new visit data parsed from the files.

When executed from the FieldVisitHotFolderService, the Tabular plugin will look for configuration files in the %ProgramData%\Aquatic Informatics\AQUARIUS Server\Configuration\TabularCSV folder of the computer running the the FieldVisitHotFolderService.

Nope!

Each time a new CSV file is parsed (because it was uploaded to Springboard or it was detected by the FieldVisitHotFolderService), all the configuration files will be reloaded.

This design choice will allow you to quickly make changes, save the updated configuration, and try again, without disrupting your entire organization's workflow.