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Region Hierarchy Lost on CSV Export/Import; Meetings Only Retain Two-Level Region Arrays

Getting Started • Issue #1864 • answer by @joshreisner

The question​

Add a description​

Summary​

When creating regions nested more than two levels deep, exporting meetings to CSV and re-importing them does not restore the original nested region hierarchy. Additionally, even after manually fixing region parent/child relationships post-import, meetings never re-establish their full ancestor region chain.

This results in permanently flattened region relationships in JSON Feed.

Steps to Reproduce​

  1. Fresh install of TSML

  2. Create 4 nested regions

    USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

  3. Create one meeting per region

    • USA

      • Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave SE, Washington, DC 20540

    • California

      • California State Capitol 1315 10th St, Sacramento, CA 95814

    • San Francisco

      • San Francisco City Hall 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl, San Francisco, CA 94102

    • Castro

      • Castro Camera 573–575 Castro St, San Francisco, CA 94114

  4. Confirm pre-export JSON

    • The Castro Camera meeting JSON correctly contains four nested regions in its regions array:

      USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

  5. Export meetings to CSV

  6. Re-import the CSV deleting everything first

Imported CSV Structure (Relevant Columns)​

NameRegionSub Region
Library of CongressUSA
California State CapitolUSACalifornia
San Francisco City HallCaliforniaSan Francisco
Castro CameraSan FranciscoCastro

(Expected limitation: CSV supports only Region + Sub Region)

Observed Behavior After Import​

  1. Regions are flattened, producing duplicate “middle” regions:

    USA → California-1
    California-2 → San Francisco-1
    San Francisco-2 → Castro

  2. This flattening is expected given the CSV format.

  3. Manually fixing the region hierarchy:

    • Regions are re-nested to match the original structure:

      USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

    • Some extra unused intermediate regions may remain.

  4. Final issue:

    • Inspecting the JSON feed shows that all meetings only ever contain two regions in their regions array.
    • This remains true even after the region hierarchy is manually corrected.

Expected Behavior​

  • After re-import and/or after manually fixing region parent-child relationships:

    • Meetings should re-establish their full region ancestry.

    • Example:

      Castro Camera → USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

Actual Behavior​

  • Meetings remain permanently limited to two region levels in their regions array.
  • Changes to region parents do not propagate to existing meetings.

  1. Export / Import Limitation

    • Nested regions deeper than two levels cannot be restored to their original hierarchy through CSV export/import.

  2. Region Parent Update Bug

    • Changing a region’s parent does not trigger a recalculation of the regions array for associated meetings (missing antecedent parents).

These may be separate bugs, but they compound to make it impossible to recover correct region nesting after import.

The answer​

thanks @SIA-WEBSUP for raising this issue. this reflects my understanding as well. we use the Region and Sub Region columns in the CSV import, and don't import (or even export, i think) the Regions as a column.

if i recall correctly, we added regions as a key in JSON to support TSML UI, but without a plan how, or if, to support it with CSVs

Code​

Snippet 1​

USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

Snippet 2​

USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

Snippet 3​

USA → California-1
   California-2 → San Francisco-1
   San Francisco-2 → Castro

Snippet 4​

USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

Snippet 5​

Castro Camera → USA → California → San Francisco → Castro

Original source: issue #1864.