Release Notes for Recorder 6Version 6.22
March 2014
This upgrade contains a number of bug fixes and major changes.
Please note the following before installing
- The major change is to the method of expanding taxonomic groups when using the Report Wizard. Table Index_Taxon_Group now only contains recommended entries, based on the Organism table. This may have an impact on user defined XMLreports or external local systems which use theIndex_Taxon_Group table to expand taxonomic groups. If this is likely to affect your systems then do not install this upgrade without considering the consequences.
- The Organism table must be installed and populated, which means that the Dictionary upgrade up to 0000001N or later must have been run prior to the upgrade or must be run immediately after it.
- After installing this upgrade you MUST rebuild all the indexes. This MUST be done in the order they appear in Tools/database tools menu. (eg. Taxon Name, Taxon Group, Taxon Synonym, Taxon Designation )
New versions of the standalone and network installation downloads will not be immediately be available for this release so new users will need to install v6.17, then upgrade to v6.22, and run the dictionary upgrades that have come out since v6.17. Installing version 6.17 of Recorder 6 complies with the latest Microsoft standards and recommendations for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. Installation on Windows 8 and 8.1 requires some special processes, details of which are available at The recommended version of SQL server for a new installation varies depending on the operating system. Refer to for details. SQL Server 2000 (including MSDE) is still supported, but not recommended for new installations. An installation version of this release is being worked on and should be available this summer.
Please run the upgrade as specified on the Recorder 6 web-site or as specified in the Recorder 6 Help.
This upgrade must only be run on version 6.14.4.212 onwards. If you are running an earlier version you must upgrade to v6.14.4.212 before running this upgrade. If you have installed version the v6.21 release candidate then you should run this upgrade. There will be no official releases of v6.20 or v6.21.
Please note the known problems/issues listed below If you encounter any problems with Recorder 6, please report them on the Recorder Forum, part of the NBN Forum .
If you are upgrading from v6.17 to v6.19, please see the v6.18 release notes for information on the dictionary upgrades that populate the new Organism table from the Natural History Museum. This has enabled the attributes Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Family and Order to be added to the report wizard.
Note that users of v6.17 can upgrade their dictionaries to 00000014 but they must not upgrade further without first upgrading to v6.18 or above.
The internal help will be updated for v6.19 in a subsequent release.
The information in black in the Notes column below is from the Change Control Note, the specification provided to the developers, the information in blue is further comment. Please note the known problems/issues listed below??? If you encounter any problems with Recorder 6, please report them on the Recorder Forum, part of the NBN Forum .
If you are upgrading from v6.17 to v6.21, please see the v6.18 release notes for information on the dictionary upgrades that populate the new Organism table from the Natural History Museum. This has enabled the attributes Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Family and Order to be added to the report wizard.
Note thatusers of v6.17 can upgrade their dictionaries to 00000014 but they must not upgrade further without first upgrading to v6.18, v6.19 or v6.21.
Title, a new field in the Source_File table in v6.18 means NBN Access Database (zipped) exports containing this table aren’t backward compatible, i.e. an export from v6.18, v6.19 or v6.21won’t import into v6.17 unless this field is removed. NBN Data (*.xml) exports should be all right but may be slow for large exports.
For more information on the changes in version 6.18, please see the internal Help or the v6.18 release notes. The link ‘Recorder 6 version 6.18’ on the home page of the Help directs users to a list of the changes with links to sections of the Help that usually provide more detail. For version 6.19, please see the v6.19 release notes. The internal help will be updated for v6.19 and v6.21 in a subsequent release.
The information in black in the Notes column below is from the Change Control Note or Mantis. The CCN is the specification provided to the developers. IDs not prefixed with CCN are from Mantis, the bug and change tracking system used for Recorder 6. The information in blue is further comment.
Known problems: When running Recorder 6 with Windows 7,it fails to write the files that should be written by the import wizard, e.g. ImportRejects.txt, because it is trying to write them to a folder which doesn’t exist. It then tries to write them to a default folder in C:\Program Files\Recorder 6\ which cannot be used unless you are running Recorder 6 as administrator. This also affects the facility to save observations for unmatched taxa, a new facility in v6.19 – see CCN379/6 in the v6.19 release notes. It also affects the facility to save invalid items. To get around this problem create a folder called ‘User Files’in C:\ProgramData\Recorder 6\.
Changes in Version 6.20 of Recorder 6
ID / Summary / NotesCCN 99 / New method in XML Reportswhich enables large reports to be sorted correctly. / Changes are required in the XML reports to implement this. New version of XML reports help is available at which explains this. The change does not apply to the Report Wizard.
379/3 / The import wizard has been modified to allow observations to be imported without matching the observers. This facility is provided to facilitate the import of data from MapMate and the NBN Gateway. However data imported in this way doesn’t conform to NBN standards so is classed as temporary and cannot be exported. / 3. Observer Processing for Temporary Data
The following changes are made to allow ‘temporary’ data imports, without splitting and matching of Observer names:
3.1 Additional settings are added to the Settings table:
- ‘TempMedia’ (comma-separated list of Media type keys which are to be treated as temporary).
- ‘TempName’ (the name key to be used when processing imports into the ‘Temporary’ Surveys).
3.2.1 The Observer(s) option is not available as a column option for temporary data imports. A new column, labelled TempObserver(s), is available instead. Irrespective of the entry in the TempObserver(s) column, the name key allocated for the Survey Event Recorder is set to the value of the TempName entry in the Settings table.
The Observer Names matching screen is skipped from the wizard sequence for temporary data imports.
3.2.2 The text from the TempObserver(s) column is stored in the Recorders field of the Sample table. This is truncated if longer than 255 characters. This value is taken into account when consolidating records to create Samples.
- Note that only basic input validation is provided on the TempObserver(s) column (as a non-required text field, with a maximum length).
- Since the Observers(s) field is set automatically for a temporary data import, there is no facility to set its value on the missing data screen.
- There is no facility to set a value for the TempObserver(s) column on the missing data screen.
For more information on the import of temporary data see the Appendix below. See also 410, 442 and 443.
348 / Import of abundance column fails for "äüößéè..." characters; abundance sets containing comma (,) not parsed– funded by Germany – should not affect UK users / Importing an Abundance Data column that contains a number of sets of abundance data separated by semicolons (;) will now work for those that contains characters like "äüöèé".
Fixed in v6.21. This should not affect UK users but if you suspect that it has please report the issues on the forum.
391 / Record card now copies down both determiner and determination date / In record card, if you have determination date and determiner column, when it copies a row down to the next species then it copiesboth the date and the determiner.
410 / Prevent the export of Survey of a media type and where Recorders column is not null / Recorder 6 users now need to import data from other systems which do not conform to the R6 standards. The most common way of doing this is to import data into R6 and then on a periodic basis to delete the data and to import it again. While this should not be used for R6 data some LRC's are using this method so that they need only import selected fields from the other LRC's. The import of data on this basis is acceptable as long as the data is never exported. While LRC's can control this manually with meta data etc. there is a danger that in the longer term the fact that the data is only 'temporary' will forgotten and that it will be exported potentially causing duplicates in other systems. In order to satisfy the Steering group that there is a need to import TLI and TV keys some controls are required to prevent the export of 'Temporary' data. In additiona modification to the Import Wizard will allow the unparsed names to be stored in the Recorder column in the Sample table. Where this has been done, the data is not suitable for export and records for samples where this approach has been used must never be exported.
1. A media type of 'Temporary' will be added to the system as system supplied data. Users will also be able to add additional 'Temporary' media types.
The keys for the system supplied and any set up by the user will be held in the Setting table as a comma separated list.
2. If a Survey has a media type identified in the setting table then the Survey is to be excluded from all R6 exports.
3. If the Recorders column in the Sample table is not null then the sample is to be excluded from any export in R6 format (both XML and zipped).
For more information on the import of temporary data see the Appendix below.
See also CCN379/3 above, 442 and 443.
412 / Show full names of Species in the observation hierarchy– funded by Germany / Species names shown in the observation hierarchy do not include attributes and author names. So in some cases the taxon determination is ambiguous (in the German taxon dictionary all taxon groups are ambiguous: eg. Veronica teurcii agg and Veronica teucrii s.str. are displayed as “Veronica teurcii”).
a) add attributes to the taxon name
Veronica austriaca Veronica austriaca agg.
Veronica austriaca s. str. Veronica austriaca s. str.
b) Some users (especially these who work with Characeae) need to have the author shown as well:
Veronica austriaca agg Veronica austriaca agg.
Veronica austriaca s. str. Veronica austriaca s. str. L.
Attributes are now displayed in the observation hierarchy. To see authors as well, tick “authors” on the General tab in Tools – Options.
413 / Show taxon name as entered option for Observations hierarchy– funded by Germany / If a taxon determination is not the preferred taxon name, it is translated to its preferred name. The original stored name is now shown in btrackets
Veronica austriaca s. str. L. [org.: Veronica austriaca subsp. austriaca L.]
This feature is turned on/off in Tools/Options
To see the taxon names input, tick “names as input” on the General tab in Tools – Options.
415 / Export to other formats - Save Specifications default location– funded by Germany / Template files of the SMExport-Suite (*.sme) are saved at Recorders program directory (...\Recorder 6). This seems to cause problems in installations where the user has no rights to access Windows “program” folder.
Please save *.SME files in ...\User Files\Templates.
or create an additional folder (...\User Files\SMETemplates) and add its path to the registry and include it in Tools-Options-File Locations.
The File Locations tab in Tools – Options has a new entry: Export Templates.
434 / Report Wizard to Use Organism table when Expanding Taxonomic Groups / Index_Taxon_Group nolonger includes list synonyms anymore; it is just a hierarchy of recommended names based on the Organism table. The effect of this is to use the Organism table for expanding the taxonomic hierarchy. This eliminates issues caused by poorly constructed lists both in the report wizard and in the population of the Index_Taxon_Designation table. When using the report wizard or choosing a higher level for expansion elsewhere users should restrict the choice to Kingdom/Phylum/Class/Order/Family. Other intermediate level, which might be available in some lists are not included in the Organism table and will not give consistent results. It is also advisable to use preferred lists whenever possible. For example the R.3.3 list should not be used for expanding taxa because the top level structure is not correct.
The population of Index_Taxon_Group now uses Index_Taxon_Name so this index (Taxon Names Index) must be built first. Always build the indexes in the order listed in the menu.
436 / Allow the Import of TV Keys in species column / The stored procedure [dbo].[usp_IWMatch_Species] has been altered to allow the import of Taxon Version keys.
When using the Import Wizard to import data, the Species Name column can now contain Taxon Version keys instead of the species names.
437 / Allow Import of External key into New Table / Users are now importing data from a variety of sources and it would be useful if the unique key from the external system could be held in Recorder 6. This could be used in Batch Updates or Addins to prevent the import of the data for a second time, or to identify situations where a duplicate has been imported.
This implementation does not require any changes to R6 code and for this reason has the following compromises have been made.
1. A separate table has been used to hold the data. This uses the Taxon_Occurrence_Key but has no external reference to the Taxon_Occurrence table. This allows occurrences to be deleted through the R6, but deleting an occurrence will not delete the entry in this table. Orphaned entries in the new table are deleted the next time the import is run.
Using a separate table, rather than adding the field to the Taxon Occurrence table also overcomes problems with exporting the data.
2. In order to get the import to work, it has been necessary to grant public permissions on the new table for Select. Granting R6 Admin permissions does not appear to work. This has been resolved. Obtaining the primary key requires R6_ReadOnly permission on select.
When using the Import Wizard to import data, the import file can now contain a column of external keys up to 30 characters long. If the column is called External Key that type will be selected automatically in the column matching window when ‘First row contains column names’ is ticked. When imported, the external key will be stored in External_Key in a new table in the Recorder 6 database (NBNData) called Taxon_Occurrence_Ext_Ref.Date Imported will also be stored.
To view the external keysin the observation hierarchy, use the latest version of the Extra info add-in. This add-in is available from
438 / Sub genus is causing problems when matching imported species / Forum topic highlights issues with matching where names include sub genus. The matching process looks for taxa which cannot safely be matched by counting the number of entries for the imported species name. Where the number is greater than 1 the match is not made automatically. In some dictionaries the same name can appear with both a sub genus and without, the one without the sub genus often has an attribute and many are the same taxa as the taxa without the subgenus. As most imported files do not have the sub genus entry the result is that matching finds only one match and therefore uses the entry without the sub genus. Often this is the wrong match.
The solution is to remove the sub genera before counting the number of matches.
This has been implemented in a change to the Import Wizard SQL. The additional advantage to this is that where the taxon name is only present with a sub genus then a match will now be found. The disadvantage is if the sub genus is included in the import file, then potential a match may not be found when before it was.
The same logic needs is applied to the matching of associated species.
This change uses a UDF supplied in V 6.18. It does slow down the matching process, however, it was tested on 7,000 matches and the time taken for the matching took about 20 seconds compared with 5 under the existing sql.
442 / Modify MetaData button addin to show the Recorders column from the Sample table / When data is imported temporarily the Observers names are put in the Recorders column in the Sample table. To allow users to see what is in this field when using Recorder 6 it is proposed to add the column to the output from the existing metadata button addin.