As of October 2022, FsHub now includes a powerful route import/export tool.
This feature enables you to export your routes out of FsHub (to a CSV file), this file can then be opened in a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc or Google Sheets.
The CSV import file contains a header row (column names) which should be kept in the file, if you remove this row, any route infomation in this first row will be ignored by the import process.
The export file contains 11 columns, these are as follows:
The CSV (or probably more commonly referred to as an "Excel file" - although not technically the same) contains 11 columns, the import system will validate and sanitise any input in these columns to the best of it's ability.
An overview of the columns with examples as to how you can use them are as follows:
Column header | Name/Description | Is required? | Example |
---|---|---|---|
id |
The route ID (automatically generated by FsHub) - you should not change this value when editting the other columns! | 324 or (blank) |
|
name |
The route name (eg. the flight number) | YES | ASA1234 |
departure_icao |
The departure airport ICAO code | YES | KSEA |
arrival_icao |
The arrival airport ICAO code | YES | KLAX |
enabled |
Is the route enabled (not hidden) in FsHub | YES | 1 (enabled), 0 (disabled) |
rewards |
Optional number of reward points rewarded to pilots for completing the route. | NO | 250 or leave blank to not reward any points. |
allowed_icaos |
Optional list of aircaft ICAO's that are valid for this route | NO | B737,B738,A320,A20N or C172,C182,PA34 or leave blank to allow any aircraft |
route |
The route plan, must include the departure and arrival airport ICAO code at the start and end. | YES | KSEA SUMMA JINMO Q7 JAGWA BURGL KLAX , the departure and arrival ICAO code MUST match the columns depature_icao and arrival_icao columns! If you just want to add a direct route (don't want to enforce a flight plan) simply use DCT (direct) between the departure and arrival airport ICAO's such as KSEA DCT KLAX . |
notes |
Optional notes about this route - this will be shown when a pilot imports the route into their flight planner in addition to on the route information page. | NO | Hub transfer flight or leave blank |
waypoint_overrides |
An advanced field to explicily tell FsHub NOT to draw/render specific problematic waypoints on the map/include in the plan. Generally you will leave this blank! | NO | 324 or (blank) |
filter |
This is a free text column which is included for you to otpionally add words or phrases to help you more easily manage (sort/filter) this file in spreadsheet applications. | summer_schedule , main_hub_flight , winter_schedule high_paying or (blank) - you can read more about how I would recommend you use this column at the end of this page! |
It is important to note that FsHub supports a maximum of 3,000 routes per airline, this is almost double the amount of routes that the airline with the largest amounts of routes (in the real world) has and should be more than enough if you are using "routes" for what they are designed for.
To bulk import routes you simply need to add new rows to your spreadsheet but it is important to note the first column (the "id") column must either be empty or contain a non-numeric value - If you enter an ID into that column, the import process will think you want to update it but will fail due to the ID not matching a valid route in your airline!
In addition to adding routes (that do not have an "id" value entered) you must also, upon import, check the "Create routes that don't have an ID column value?" option, with this option un-ticked, FsHub will not attmept to create these routes (this is a measure to prevent you automatically creating duplicate routes if you forget to remove the new rows or forget to download the latest import file - which would then contain the associated ID's for your newly created routes from your previous import.
Bulk editing routes is super easy, just export your latest routes file and then make the changes to one or more lines then simply re-import the file!
FsHub will scan throught all rows and assuming the row has a matching "id", will update your route information based on the row data.
To delete a single (or multiple routes) simply delete the row (route) from the spreadsheet, save the changes and then using the import tool, upload the file and be sure to check the "Delete routes that have been deleted from the import file?" option.
Upon pressing the Import button, any routes that exist in your FsHub airline but are no longer present in your import file will be automatically deleted!
If you don't actually want to delete a route but instead would prefer to hide it, you should simply change the
enabled
column value from1
to0
- this, upon importing will automatically disable (and hide the route) within FsHub and, as you might expect, if you want to re-enable those routes at a later date, simply change it back to1
again and re-import!
Route imports work by uploading a modfied version of the route export file.
The file will automatically be uploaded to our platform and then, behind the scenes (on our servers) will run in the background.
Whilst some changes will be near-instant, other more "intensive" tasks will automatically be throttled (to ensure platform stability), the following import types will be throttle to one creation (or update) per every 2 seconds, these actions that are throttle are as follows:
route
colum (as our platform will re-calculate the track distances and re-verify the waypoints exist in our database or mark them as "ignored" if they are missing.All other updates such as simply changing the enabled
colum, the route name
column (eg. the flight number), rewards
or allowed_icaos
will not throttle at all and imports should be almost instantatious!
Once the import process is completed, the import screen will automatically update and advise that the process was completed!
If you are importing many new routes or making many routing changes (eg. changing the
departure_icao
,arrival_icao
and/or theroute
column), this process make take several minutes - rest assured though that you can close your browser and the processing will continue on the server, you can simply re-visit the Route Import tool later to check back on the the import log for any errors. If however you want to wait for the import to complete, simply leave your browser page open and the page will automatically refresh once the import process is completed and present you with any import errors!
filter
column (an awesome tip!)The last column of the CSV file is known as the filter
column, this column can be used for you to optionally add words or phrases that your spreadsheet program can then use to filter or sort results - this will make is really easy for you to bulk update several rows in one go!
Whilst this is empty (blank) by default, you can optionally add any word or phrase in this column for filtering purposes inside Excel or whatever spreadsheet program you are using... this is designed with the sole purpose of enableing you to easily "filter" or "sort" your routes when updating them in your spreadsheet editor of choice.
When I added this feature, I had the following example scenarios in mind:
If you have seasonal routes, you could enter winter_route
or summer_route
into this column - Then using your spreadsheet program and sorting the rows by that column you can easily bulk change the value in the enabled
column from 0
to 1
(thus enabling the new season flights) and setting all the enabled
column to 1
to 0
in the old season routes (thus disabling the old season routes) - re-importing this file will then automatically switch all your routes based on your season.
You might decide that you would rather associate routes to a hub and use the hub name in that column instead, enabling you to very easily update or delete routes for a specific hub in future.
A mixture of the two, multiple words (and then use the advanced filter features in Excel to quickly filter and enable you to bulk update all those associated routes).
Whatever you type into this column will also be uploaded to, and saved in FsHub so that in future, when you re-download the routes file, these "tags" (filterable words) will be automatically included - meaning that you don't have to keep any files locally on your PC and, other airline admins, when they export, will also get these nice filter abilities too!
If at this point, you're completely confused as to what this means or can do you for... don't worry and you can simply ignore this column (as it's not required, just an addition, advanced feature!)
Will add tips here shortly!