Incremental update support for specimen import

LabKey Support Forum
Incremental update support for specimen import tstellin  2020-04-17 09:14
Status: Active
 

Hi,

We are curious if LabKey supports (or plans to support) an "incremental" specimen import. This would allow only the specimen event deltas to be specified in the .specimen ZIP archive imported into LabKey each day. It would require complicating the interface--for example, a record would need to signify a "deleted" event (in contrast to the current behavior, where a deletion is signified by the absence of a previously-seen specimen event).

I didn't see anything on the current documentation that suggests an incremental import is supported. My understanding is that the current behavior merges the new .specimen ZIP file with the specimens loaded from the previous import.

Thanks,
-Tobin

 
 
adam responded:  2020-04-17 10:52

Hi Tobin,

We would love to support incremental imports... for specimens (which I'm sure is increasingly a pain point for SCHARP) as well as for lists and datasets. Since most of our clients aren't able to generate incremental archives, we would like to take this a step beyond what you describe. Our hope is to generate an incremental diff by analyzing a full archive against the previously loaded data, then processing that diff to perform the import in a tiny fraction of the time (assuming most data doesn't change between imports). The diff could also be used to provide more meaningful notifications, audit logging, and tracking, by showing exactly what data changed from import to import.

We've prototyped this approach, proving that it's viable and fast. We're now talking to clients about turning this concept into a production feature. Last week, I put this topic on the agenda for our next conversation with SCHARP leadership (May 1). You could join that meeting and/or we can discuss offline if you'd like. I'll reach out via email.

Adam

 
tstellin responded:  2020-04-17 11:48
Status: Closed

Hi Adam,

Thank you for the quick reply. It's exciting to hear Labkey is investigating performance improvements to the specimen import.

I'll decline the invite to the SCHARP leadership/Labkey meeting, but am happy to continue discussing the feature via email.

Thanks,
-Tobin