Tutorial: Manual Import settings

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Manual Import settings

The Manual Import tab is used to import a large number of hands while not playing; for instance when creating a new database or after a datamining session.
If you want to import hands while you play and use the HUD then you should use the Auto Import tab.

Manual Import is much faster than auto import for bulk imports if you have a lot of hand histories to import all at once.

Manual Import will always import into the current Active database, as shown in the title bar of PT3. To change the Active database use the menu Database > Set Active Database.
The processed files will not be moved (as they are with Auto Import).
If the 'Adjust Qualifying Tables Limits' option is enabled on the Auto Import tab then this setting will be used so that short-handed tables can be recognized.

To configure your sites to write hand histories see the site-specific guides in the Documentation - this guide only explains how to use the general manual import options.

• Import Actions
  
  • Configuring Email settings

• Import Options

• Import Statistics

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Import Actions

The Import Actions section allows you to import from files, directories, or POP3 email.
To start an import, click the appropriate button.

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• Import From File(s)
  
  
  This option allows you to select one or more files to import.
  
  Browse to the appropriate folder and select the file (or files using shift-click, control-click, or click-drag) and click Open.

• Import From Directory
  
  
  This option allows you to import all the hand history files within a specific folder.
  
  Browse to select the appropriate folder and click Open.
  If you want subfolders to be imported too enable the Include Sub-Directories option.
  Note: All files in the selected directory will be read, but non-hand history files will be rejected as unknown types.

• Import From Email
  
  
  This option allows you to import directly from a POP3 email account.
  
  This is most commonly used to import tournament summary information which some sites will email to you on request (see the Tournaments FAQ) but can also be used to import any hand histories you have requested by email too.
  Before you can use this option you must configure your POP3 email settings by clicking the Configure link below the button.
  This is described later in this tutorial.
  

• Pause
  
  
  Click the Pause button to temporarily stop the import and Resume (same button) to continue.

• Stop
  
  Click the Stop button to stop the import.

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Import Options

The Import Options section determines what will be done when the import has completed.

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• Auto-Tournament Detect
  
  
  If you enable this option tournament type and results information will be inferred from the imported hand histories (and summaries if present).
  For more information see the Tutorial: Tournament Auto Detection.

• Overwrite Tournament Summary Data
  
  
  If you enable this option then information in tournament summary files will overwrite any information already in the database, from hand histories already imported or entered manually.
  This is primarily useful if you are importing summaries exported from PT3 which include manually entered information such as updated rebuy data which doesn't match the information in the hand history files.
  If the option is disabled then the only data with a zero value in the database will be updated from imported summaries.

• Housekeeping options
  
  
  • Cluster on completion
  • Vacuum on completion
  • Analyze on completion
  • Update Cache on completion
  These 4 options can also be accessed manually from the main menu: Database > Housekeeping.
  You do not need to do all of these after every manual import, but if you import a large number of hands then they will help to keep your database running smoothly. Please read "A note on Update Cache", below.
  If you are going to do several manual imports in a row then there is no point doing housekeeping after each one as they are run fresh each time, but enabling them for the final import would be a good idea.
  Analyze is a very quick process and should generally be left enabled all the time, but Cluster and Update Cache can take significant amounts of time for large databases and need to be done less often. Vacuum is to reclaim space when you have purged sessions, but is also a quick process so should be enabled whenever you do Cluster and UpdateCache.
  
  See the Database Management & Maintenance Guide for details and recommendations.
  
  
  A note on Update Cache
  
  Your cache status (shown in the Status Bar at the bottom of the PT3 window) should be kept at 100% all the time for optimum performance. Auto Import does this automatically, but after a Manual Import you need to update the cache manually.
  The Update Cache option adds newly imported hands to the cache, without the need to rebuild the entire cache. If you import a small number of hands to a database, relative to the size of the database, then this is the fastest way to get the cache back up to 100%.
  However, if you import a relatively large amount of hands, or import into an empty database, then using the Rebuild Cache option on the Database > Housekeeping window will be significantly faster.

• Beep on completion
  
  
  If you enable this option PokerTracker 3 will make a noise to notify you that the import has finished.

• Close PokerTracker on completion
  
  
  If you enable this option PokerTracker 3 will be closed down when the import completes.

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Import Statistics

The Import Statistics section reports the progress of the manual import.

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• Files Imported
  
  Shows how many files have been imported and how many are to be imported in total.

• Hands Imported
  
  Shows the number of hands imported so far.

• Time Elapsed
  
  The time the current import has been running for.

• Time Remaining
  
  This is an estimate of the time that the import has left to run. It is not easy to estimate as it depends on what is in the files remaining to be imported, but should get more accurate as the import progresses.

• Duplicates
  
  Shows how many hands during the current import were already in the database so were rejected to avoid creating duplicates.

• Errors
  
  Shows how many hands during the current import failed to import.
  The Import Status window below will list the hands which generated errors.

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Configuring Email Settings

Before you can use the Import From Email button you need to configure your POP3 email settings by clicking the Configure link.

In the Configure POP3 Email Server window you need to fill in the Server, User, and Password information for your email account.
You can obtain this from your email service provider.
You can normally leave the Port at the default of 110 but again your service provider should be able to tell you what port to use.
Only enable the Use SSL option if your POP3 server needs it.

As an example, if you use a GMail account it will be something like this:
Server: pop.gmail.com
User: yourname@gmail.com
Password: Your GMail password
GMail uses SSL, so enable that option and set it to Port 995.

Should you want to set up your GMail account to use POP, or if you want to create a new GMail account to handle your hand/summary emails, here's a link to help you set up GMail's POP3 Settings.

For Hotmail the settings are like this:
Server: pop3.live.com
User: yourname@hotmail.com
Password: Your Hotmail password
Hotmail uses SSL, so enable that option and set it to Port 995.


Additional Information

If you use your normal email address to receive poker emails then you may have a lot of non-poker emails to wade through.
In this case it makes sense to create a new email account just for your poker emails - there are several ways of getting a free email address, such as http://www.gmail.com mentioned above.

If you set up a new email address you should register it with the poker sites that you want to request emails from so that you get the emails directly to PT3 rather than forwarding emails from your existing account to your new account.
When emails are forwarded they are often changed - line breaks or additional characters can be added which change the structure of the file and prevent PT3 from importing them.

Should you need to forward emails like this for some reason you must make sure that your email application is forwarding them unchanged. Most applications should do this by default, but they may not.
For instance in Microsoft Outlook Express you must make these changes:
Menu Item Tools > Options > Send.
Mail Sending Format should be set to "Plain Text".
In "plain text settings" set Automatically Wrap Text at "760" (or some big number, it looks like there is no way to inhibit word wrap).
Remove the checkbox to "Indent the original text with >".