Import existing data

We’ll import your data for free

Have maps and courses in another system and no time to write a script? We’ll help you bring them into Checkpoint for free — just drop us an email at support@checkpointrun.com or post a message on the Import board.

This page is about data that already exists somewhere else: maps your club has georeferenced over the years, courses planned in other software, a whole archive on a RouteGadget server. Rather than recreating it by hand, you can move it into Checkpoint with a script against the API.

Questions about importing?

Ask, suggest or share your experience on the Import board of the feedback page — it opens with the Import theme already selected.

What the API gives you

Everything the app does, a script can do too, with the same account and the same permissions. For an import, the useful parts are:

• Clubs — POST /api/clubs creates the club the imported maps and courses will belong to.
• Maps — POST /api/maps uploads a map image together with the latitude and longitude of its four corners, which is all Checkpoint needs to lay it over the terrain. A map can also start without an image and be georeferenced later with PUT /api/maps/{id}/georeference.
• Courses — POST /api/courses creates a course on a map from its controls’ coordinates. If your courses are already in IOF XML (v2 or v3) or MapRun KML, POST /api/courses/import reads the file and returns the controls, ready to save.

Every parameter is in the OpenAPI browser. Mind the limit of 100 requests a minute: pace a large import rather than retrying on 429.

Samples

Working examples are in Checkpoint-io/Checkpoint-Samples on GitHub. They’re released under CC0, so copy and adapt them freely.

RouteGadget: every georeferenced map and its courses

Import/RouteGadget/import-routegadget.mjs takes every georeferenced map on a RouteGadget server, with the courses of every event held on it, and recreates them in a new club on Checkpoint:

1. It reads the server’s list of maps and events.
2. It turns each map’s georeference into the real-world position of the image’s four corners, and each course’s controls from positions on the image into latitude and longitude.
3. It creates the club, uploads each map, and creates its courses.

Maps that aren’t georeferenced are skipped: without real-world coordinates there’s nothing to place on the terrain.

To run it, set the constants at the top of the file — your Checkpoint email and password, a name for the new club, and your RouteGadget server’s addresses (the sample points at one of British Orienteering’s) — then, with Node.js 20 or later:

node import-routegadget.mjs

It paces its own requests to stay under the rate limit, so a large archive takes a while.

Only import maps and courses you have the right to publish. A map belongs to the club or mapper who made it, whether or not it sits on a public server.

Collaborate

Written an importer for another tool — OCAD, Purple Pen, Condes, Livelox, your club’s own archive? Contributions to the samples repository are welcome: open a pull request, and it will help the next club making the same move.

If an import needs something the API doesn’t do yet, or you’d like a hand with a migration, tell us on the Import board of the feedback page.