The Devices Template

The Devices template (devices-template.xls) lets you add or update Vocera devices.

If you specify a site, group, or device status, it must already exist in the database; the template does not create it. If a row in this data-loading template references one of those entities, and that entity does not exist, the row causes a validation error and does not load. Any other rows that successfully validate load properly.

Tip: If you are using Microsoft Excel to edit .csv files, import the data as text to prevent Excel from changing the cell format to Date or Number. For more information, see Importing Text into Microsoft Excel
Table 1. Device fields

Field

Maximum Length

Description

MAC Address

12

Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a hardware address that acts like a unique name for the device. The MAC address is 12 characters long. Most MAC addresses for Vocera badges have the following prefix: 0009ef.

Adding devices

  • For B3000 and B2000 badges, this field is optional because the MAC address can be derived from the serial number; the last 6 characters of the MAC address and the serial number are identical.

  • For B1000A badges and Smartphones, this field is required.

Updating devices

  • The MAC Address field is required for all device types as it is the key field that uniquely identifies devices in the database.

Serial Number

15

Specify the serial number of the device.

For B3000 and B2000 badges, the serial number is 12 characters. For B1000A badges, the serial number is 15 characters. For Vocera Smartphones, the serial number is 10 characters.

Label

20

A label that identifies the device. The label must be unique; it cannot be used by another device.

The value entered in the Label field should also be the value on the actual label affixed to the front of the device. For example, you can label the device with the abbreviation of the group (for example, RAD for radiology and CICU for cardiac intensive care unit) that owns the device.

Status

20

Specify the device status. The value you specify must match one of the existing device status values.

Tracking Date

n/a

Specify a date used to track the device, for example, the date it was sent for repair or RMA'ed.

The date string must be specified using the following date format:

United States and Canada: mm/dd/yyyy
Other locales: dd/mm/yyyy
                          

For example, the fourth day of September in the year 2010 is written as 09/04/2010 in mm/dd/yyyy format and 04/09/2010 in dd/mm/yyyy format.

Owning Group

101

Specify the group that owns the device. To qualify a group by specifying its site, use a colon to separate the value from the site name (GroupName:SiteName). If you do not specify a site, the Global site is used by default, and the group name is limited to 50 characters.

Notes

1000

Enter up to 1000 characters to provide further information about the device status, for example, "Badge stopped working after accidentally being immersed in water" or "Badge sent to IT to repair the battery latch."

Site

50

Specify the device's home site.

  • If your organization has multiple sites connected to the same Vocera server, choose the home site that represents the device's physical location.

  • If your organization does not have multiple sites, leave this field blank to accept Global.

Shared?

n/a

Specify TRUE if the device is shared between multiple users. Otherwise, specify FALSE.