Enable importing habits from JSON or CSV or logging on past dates via shortcuts
It would be great to be able to upload past habit data from other apps. If it were possible to import habits via an editable file (in whatever format works for you), then it would be possible to export habits from another app into CSV, then, modify the CSV file into whatever format you use, then import it.
Alternatively, if you make it possible to log habits via Shortcuts on past days (right now it’s only possible to log a habit value for the present day), then it would be possible to at least write a shortcuts script to migrate over the data from other apps. The latter option would be less usable for most people, but I imagine it would be very straightforward to implement given that you’ve already implemented Shortcuts support.
Also, if you’re considering the Shortcuts approach, that functionality might be useful for other purposes for other users. For example, it could enable users to set up more complete integrations with IFTTT via Shortcuts.
For me though, it would be nice to be able to import existing data into Strides
Dan Thompson
shared this idea
Hi Dan,
Thanks for reaching out!
I've considered full data importing for a long time but it's an extremely rare request and would require quite a bit of development to get it right so I haven't prioritized it yet.
That said, I did just add a feature that can save a ton of time for the most common habits with a goal of 1 time per day: You can create a new habit with those settings and a start date in the past and it will ask if you did the habit every day from the start date. If you tap yes it will automatically backlog all those days for you so you can keep the streak you had going.
Hope that helps! I'll keep this idea open for others to vote on it.
Have a great day,
Kyle
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I did notice that feature you mentioned. Thanks very much.
I totally understand if this is a low priority issue that isn’t worth tackling.
But, I did just want to point out, in case you skimmed past it, that there is a potentially simple solution here. I say potentially because while it seems like it would be simple from a dev perspective, I don’t actually know, since obviously I haven’t seen how you’ve implemented the app.
But since you already have shortcuts for logging habit data, I think a small modification would enable me to do an import. Right now the shortcuts only let you set habit data for the present day. But if you modified them to allow the user to input a date for logging, so that they could use the shortcut to log for past days, then it would be possible to use a shortcuts script to import past data.
And even if that’s not a common use case, I could imagine that feature enabling other functionality that might be useful to a broader audience. For instance, I have certain trackers that can sometimes be logged based on external data (e.g. my work hours tracker value could be set by data from rescuetime). Right now I could build a shortcut to connect the two but if it isn’t run every day, it’s useless, and it’s not possible to fill in historical data, making it just not quite worth it. Another example would be that this shortcut support would enable syncing data from Google sheets to strides. Or it could enable a shortcut to sync between other habits apps (you could export another app’s contents to CSV, then run a shortcut on that file that processes it and adds the data to strides, including on past days).
Basically, implementing this would enable import, but it would also effectively be an API (at least the write half - reading values from strides via shortcuts would also be nice but it’s not a big issue for me because you have export functionality).
So big picture, this might be something that is useful to other users. Admittedly, probably not a ton of people care about syncing or API access, but if you combine the niche of people who want import capability with the niche that wants API access / the ability to sync with other apps, maybe those niches add up to enough people for it to be worth the work (especially since you already have the vast majority of the logic implemented).
Anyway I totally understand if the shortcuts approach would also be difficult, or even if it would be easy but still not a priority. But I just wanted to mention that as an option because I think it would be a lot easier than implementing import as a standalone feature.
Thanks very much for taking the time to read and respond. And I totally understand whatever direction you end up deciding to take.