Exporting Projects

The Export command for a project is found on the Project List screen. Note: The function described here is for transferring an entire FF&EZ project from one FF&EZ system to another, or for making a backup of a specific project instead of your entire database. If you want to export project data to a spreadsheet or text file to share with others, that function is available on the FF&E Worksheet under Utilities> Export... as well as the "save to file" option available in any report preview.

To export a project, make sure the desired project is highlighted on this screen's list of projects, then click on the Export button. This will produce a setup screen:

Unlike the more basic export functions, the Project Export command does one thing: it creates a single archive file of the entire design project, including the client and related vendors. This file is in the FF&EZ Data Archive (FDA) format, which is similar to an XML file, but which is designed to be used by other FF&EZ systems. Since the archive is a single file, it is easy to email to a client or consultant and can be used to "take work home" if you have a copy of FF&EZ at home.

Note: although the links are preserved, the FDA file itself does not include the actual images that may be linked to project specifications, since this would create very large files. If an FDA file by itself is used to create a project on a system that does not have the linked images, the images will simply be blank. To prevent this, use the "Include image files" option (below).

Vendor information in an FDA file is identified by the Vendor ID, as you would expect, but there are coordination issues to consider when importing a project into another FF&EZ system. Be sure to read the section that covers importing projects.

If you have the Purchasing version, the "ordered" status of items in the FF&E Worksheet is preserved during export, but not the links to the actual project orders, which depend on a hidden project "key" that that is rewritten when an exported project is imported again. Please keep this in mind if you are exporting and importing projects for which ordering activity has started. After ordering has started, the original project must be used for all orders for the project. If you are "fast-tracking" a project and receiving a just-completed section of a project, you can import that section as a separate project and either 1) generate orders directly from it (as part of a project group) or 2) import the rooms in the new section into the master project so they can be ordered normally

The options you have when exporting projects are:

File name	The file name is pre-filled for you based on the project ID.* You can change this as needed or add to it. The FDA or ZIP extension (see next items) cannot be deleted.
Include image files	Selecting this option changes the way the export organizes the data. Although the FDA file is created in the same way, it by default then placed in a compressed archive (zip) file in the FF&EZ-Export folder (see below). The zip file will be named after the project ID* and will also contain an "image" folder with a copy of all the images used in the project.
Save as compressed (zip) file	This is checked by default when you select "Include image files," since it is much easier to manage a single file than multiple ones. However, if you wish to create a file set that can be burned to a CD as separate files, uncheck this option. Instead of a zip file, the system will create a new folder named after the project ID in the FF&EZ-Export folder, including a subfolder containing the images as described above. Since this creates multiple files and folders, the "project archive sub-folder" beneath FF&EZ-Export is the only target available with this combination of options. Also note that exporting a number of projects with images may use up a considerable amount of disk space, so we recommend that you delete the project's archive folder (beneath FF&EZ-Export) when you have finished working with it. As of version 3.2.80, you can import a compressed "project and images" zip file on another FF&EZ system as long as it was created "with images" using this export format.
Create file in...	You can create the file in any location you wish, but two common locations are available for you to select as well. The default location is the "FF&EZ-Export" folder located in your "documents" folder. This selection is overridden if you select the "Include image files" option.

*Note: If the project ID includes any "illegal" characters that cannot be used in a file name (such as "/"), you will see substitutions made for those characters when the ID is used for a file name (or folder name).