The import process for Rare Plant Register (RPR) lists (and checklists in general) is conceptually similar to the import of occurrence records.
The items file needs to go through the Run the taxonomic name process, in the same way as for occurrence record import.
The list shouldn’t normally include neophyte taxa - if it does, follow Identifying and excluding neophytes on a conservation list
For an RPR list, the spreadsheet also needs to include a vice-county column (e.g. a column where, for each row, the value is "VC9" or whatever vice-county you are working with).
In DDb terms, checklists are sets of objects (normally occurrences or taxa) optionally linked with a single value, min/max pair or a set of values along with optional notes and a reference.
The full list of checklists is here: https://database.bsbi.org/checklists.php (accessible from Tools > checklists)
Almost all of those are taxon lists.
If there is an existing list for the vice county, use that. You can click into the Edit Definition tab for that list and go through the same process below to update the list.
To create a new checklist, use the Upload a new checklist link at the top of the screen.
It may be easiest to refer back to an existing RPR checklist to check the settings: e.g.
- The free-text category field should be "County Rare Plant Registers" - the category is used to place the checklist in the list-of-lists.
- For checklist type use 'county rare plant register' - which is used to flag to the system that this list should be cached as an RPR conservation attribute.
- The do not show as linked attribute affects whether individual occurrence records of taxon should also show this checklist as an attribute.
- The next is heritable attribute affects whether taxon ranks below inherit the attribute - they should for RPRs.
- The checklist items file should be the plant list import file with taxon ids added.
- The other fields can be left with their default values.
Then click the Preview button.
Once uploaded the preview will look similar to this:
The taxon id column should be set as primary key.
Most of the remaining columns can be ignored. If there isa usable county-level rarity status assigned, that column should be marked as ''value" => "coded" (coded indicating that the value is from a constrained set of keywords).
The vice-county column should be marked as "Linked county"
Once those columns are set then clicking "Create" should set-up the checklist, which should now be available after a couple of minutes.