Upload Notes tab - jonathanbrecher/sharedclustering GitHub Wiki

The Upload Notes tab provides way to transfer notes from your computer back to the Ancestry web site. You can use the same process to make batch changes to starred matches and to the "colored dots" groups assigned to each match.

The saved cluster diagram includes a column with any notes that you had already entered on the Ancestry web site, along with columns showing whether the match is starred and the groups assigned to each match. As you work with the diagram, you might find more notes that you want to add as you identify more matches in your clusters. Or you might want to edit your existing notes once you see several of them listed next to each other in the spreadsheet. Rather than editing each match one at a time on the Ancestry web site, you can edit them in the spreadsheet and then upload them all at once.

Quickly downloading all notes for all matches

If you are not interested in generating clusters... well, you're missing out. But if you really are not interested in generating clusters, the Upload Notes tab works well in conjunction with fast downloads of match data only, to generate a spreadsheet that contains all of your primary matches (and their current notes, stars, and groups) without taking the time to download the shared match information that is otherwise needed for generating clusters.

Upload file format

The Upload Notes tab works with an Excel Worksheet (*.xlsx) file that has at least two columns containing the text "Name", and "Test ID", and at least one other column for "Starred", "Notes", or the name of some group in the first row. Other columns are allowed, but only those are required. This is the default format for files saved by the Cluster tab. Similarity tab, and Export tab so you can edit those files in place and then simply upload the modified versions.

New notes should be entered with the text of the new note. For stars and groups, it may be convenient to use the word ADD, although any non-blank value will be treated as turning on a star or a group.

To prevent against accidentally deleting all of your notes, stars, and groups, blank cells will always be treated as "no change", preserving whatever values are present on the Ancestry web site.

Shared Clustering will only remove data from the Ancestry web site if you change the content of the cell to the single word DELETE in the Excel cell. The same DELETE word should be used when removing notes, stars, or groups.

Shared Clustering will upload all notes, stars, and groups present in the file. This can take some time. If are working with a large cluster diagram that has many notes and you know that you changed only some of the notes, you can save some time by copying the changed rows (plus the header row) into a new, smaller file before uploading.

Updating saved data

Before Shared Clustering uploads new notes to the Ancestry web site, it give you an option to update any existing Shared Clustering data files that you have saved locally. This step is totally optional and does not affect the Ancestry web site at all. The goal is to get the updated notes into the data you have already downloaded, so you don't have to download all of your matches again just to get the updated notes into your future cluster diagrams.

Shared Clustering will update as many local data files as you want, one at a time. To stop updating local data files, choose Cancel in the open file dialog. Once you stop updating the local data files, Shared Clustering will proceed on to uploading the changed notes to the Ancestry web site.

Changed notes log file

After all of the changed notes have been updated, Shared Clustering will save a file on your local computer that documents all of the changes, including the match's name, Test ID, and old and new notes. This file is completely unnecessary, since the new notes are on the Ancestry web site before this file is created. On the other hand, this file is also incredibly useful since it provides a way to undo your changes. If you need to recover your original notes, you can rename the Old Notes column in this file back to simply Notes, and then upload it again to get your old notes back on the Ancestry web site.

Uploading notes to different accounts

It is possible to upload notes, stars and groups to a different account! This can be very useful for people who manage tests for several people in the same family, as it provides a way to copy those values from one account to another (group names must match exactly in the account being updated). It doesn't always make sense to copy notes to different accounts, so this action should be taken with care.

If you upload notes to a different account, the values will only be updated for people who are matches to both accounts.

Username and password

You must enter your Ancestry DNA username and password and then click Sign In before using the rest of this tab.

The username will be saved, and restored if you quit and relaunch the application. For security, your password will not be saved and must be entered when you need it.

Test name

The test name lets you specify to which test to upload the notes should be uploaded.

Progress bar

The progress bar shows the status of the uploading operation.