Board Game Stats has the ability to import your plays from BoardGameGeek (BGG).

Plays that have been imported from BGG have a link to the corresponding play on BGG. This means that if you update the Play in BG Stats, you can quickly update the play on BGG as well by tapping the ‘BGG‘ button on the play page. Similarly, when you delete a play in BG Stats, you will be asked if you want to delete it on BGG as well.

Quick jump to:

Where to find the BGG import

New users

When you first open the app, you’ll see the introduction screen. You can tap ‘I’m a returning user…‘ on the first page, if you have used BG Stats before, or tap ‘Get Started‘ on the last page after you’ve read the introduction.

To import your plays from BGG, choose ‘I backup on BGG‘. You will then be guided through logging in to BGG, importing your collection and importing plays.

Importing later

If you want to import plays from BGG later, you can do so from:

  • the BoardGameGeek settings
    • Settings ➡️ BoardGameGeek ➡️ Import plays from BGG…
  • the Plays list
    • tap on the green gear icon and select BoardGameGeek under the heading Import from

Differences iOS & Android

The Import Plays screen has three major functions:

  • Import Plays
  • Delete Plays
  • Remove link
iOS

These options are represented with three tabs at the top of the screen.

Android

On Android you’ll see the options of the Import Plays screen first. The buttons for Delete Plays and Remove link are underneath. When you tap on one of these two buttons, the options as described below will be used for this action.

Import Plays screen Android

Important to know before importing

Before you import plays from BGG, please be aware of the following.

How details are matched

When importing plays from BGG, BG Stats tries to match the imported data to data already in the app. This is done in the following way.

Games
  • Games are matched by:
    • BGG id: if the game is linked to BGG
    • Exact name (case insensitive)

If no match was found, a new Game is added to Board Game Stats, with the BGG id link in place. The details of this Game will be loaded automatically from BGG the first time you view it.

Players
  • Players are matched by:
    • BGG username: if entered on that Players page
    • by exact name (case insensitive)

If no match was found, a new Player is added to Board Game Stats, with the name used on BGG, if provided the BGG username is set as well.

Locations
  • Locations are matched by:
    • name (case insensitive)

If no match was found, a new Location is added with that name.

  • Plays will not be updated, only plays that are not known to Board Game Stats are imported.
  • Plays with a quantity higher than 1 are imported as separate plays. Only the first of these will be linked to the corresponding BGG play.
  • Both the ‘Don’t count win stats‘ and ‘Incomplete‘ check boxes on BGG are imported as the ‘Ignore for statistics‘ option in Board Game Stats.

Incomplete data on BGG

  • If you did not enter players and scores on BGG, no players or scores will be added to the play on Board Game Stats – not even yourself. This way statistics will not be affected for the number of plays, win percentage or scores.
  • If you did enter players but no scores, the players are added to the play in Board Game Stats without scores. These will not effect statistics for scores, because they are empty. They DO effect statistics for number of plays and win percentages.
  • If you did not enter names for players, those players will be added as anonymous players.
  • Plays that do not have a date set on Board Game Geek are ignored during import.

Import Plays

From this screen you can import plays from BGG.

The following basic options are available:

  • BGG Username: Enter the username of the user you want to import plays from.
  • Every date: Enable this to import all plays from this user, regardless of date
  • From date & To and including date: Select the date range you want plays to be imported from (only available if Every date is not enabled)
Import plays tab iOS

The following optional settings can be enabled:

  • Don’t import with quantity below 1: When enabled, plays that have a quantity set below 1 (displayed as 0 on BGG) will be skipped and not imported.
  • Ignore for stats if no winner set: When enabled, plays where no winner is set on BGG will be imported with the “Ignore for statistics” play setting enabled.
    • If the played game was already in Board Game Stats and was set to being Cooperative, the play is imported as usual and ‘the Game’ is considered to have won.
  • Include ‘RPG Item’ and ‘Video Game’ plays: When enabled plays logged on RPG Items (RPGGeek) and Video Games (VideoGameGeek) are also imported.

Importing

Before importing it might be good to check your existing Games, Locations and Players, so they match the details on BGG. As much of the entered data of the play as possible will be imported, you can read how the details are matched here: How details are matched.

Once you have checked everything, you can start the import process by tapping ‘Import plays‘ and tapping ‘Import‘ on the confirmation dialog.

All relevant plays will be loaded from BGG. A dialog will show how many plays were found, and how many of those already exist in the app. The number of plays listed in the dialog is the number of play entries on BGG, ignoring the quantity of these plays at this point.

To complete the import, tap ‘Import‘ on this dialog (or tap ‘Cancel‘ to cancel the import). You will see how many plays were imported, and how many were added to the app due to adjusting for quantities.

Please note
  • Before importing, make sure you have read Important before importing.
  • The number of created plays can be higher if some of the imported plays had a quantity set.
  • The number of created plays can be lower if some of the plays had a quantity lower than 1:
    • If you have enabled to ignore plays with a quantity below 1.
    • If they were recognized as expansion plays. They will be added as an expansion play in the corresponding play of the base game.
  • You can see a list of imported plays via Settings ➡️ Export, import and backup ➡️ Imported plays.

Delete Imported Plays

With this option you can delete plays you’ve previously imported from BGG. If you have imported plays from multiple usernames, this will include all plays, it is not possible to filter on username.

The following options are used:

  • Every date: Enable this to delete all imported plays, regardless of date
  • From date & To and including date: Select the date range you want plays to be deleted from (only available if Every date is not enabled)
Delete Imported plays iOS

Deleting

Once you have checked these settings and they are as you want, you can delete the imported plays by tapping ‘Delete Imported plays‘.

After confirming you want to delete plays, you will be shown how many plays will be deleted. Confirming this will delete the plays permanently.

Please note

If after deleting there are imported Players, Games and Locations that have no remaining plays, you will be asked whether to delete these as well.

Remove link

With this option you can remove the link to BGG from all plays. On iOS this also includes plays you’ve created in BG Stats. On Android only imported plays (via any import method) are affected.

The following options are used:

  • Every date: Enable this to delete the link for all plays, regardless of date
  • From date & To and including date: Select the date range you want (only available if Every date is not enabled)
Remove BGG link iOS

Removing

Once you have checked these settings and they are as you want, you can remove the BGG link from plays by tapping ‘Remove BGG link‘.

Please note
  • Removing the BGG link from a play will not remove the play from BGG or BG Stats.
  • Tapping the BGG button (or using Multiple select to Post or update plays) for plays without a link will result in a new play on BGG.
  • You can remove the link from a single play by tapping and holding the BGG button on a Play page

Duplicates

Games

If you have a duplicate game, you can do the following:

  • Go to the Game page of the game you want to remove
  • Tap on ‘Plays >’ to go to the list of plays for that Game
  • Tap ‘Select’ at the top of the screen (this is the word ‘Select’ on iOS and lines with a checkmark on Android)
  • Select all the plays or tap ‘All’ at the bottom of the screen
  • Tap ‘Edit’
  • Select ‘Set Game…’ and choose the game to keep

You can now delete the Game you want to remove by swiping over it from right to left in the list of Games.

Locations

If you have a duplicate Location, you can do the following:

  • Go to the list of Locations
  • Tap on the ⓘ (iOS) or the three dots (Android) to go to the Location page of the Location you want to remove
  • Tap on ‘Merge this location into another location’
  • Select the Location you want to keep
  • Confirm

Players

If you have a duplicate Player, you can do the following:

  • Go to the Players list
  • Tap on the Player you want to remove
  • Tap ‘Edit’
  • Tap on ‘Merge this player into another player’
  • Select the Player you want to keep
  • Confirm

Deleting duplicate plays from BGG

If for some reason you have a correct set of plays in BG Stats, but on BGG there are other plays (duplicates, or invalid ones) you want to delete, you can follow these steps to delete all plays from BGG that are not in BG Stats.

Please note: Do this on a day you haven’t imported anything else into the app, as you’ll be deleting plays you imported today.

  • Import all plays from BGG via Settings > BoardGameGeek > Import Plays from BGG…
  • Go to Settings > BoardGameGeek > Play posting settings and check you have “Delete plays in sync” enabled
  • Go to Settings > Export, import and backup > Imported Plays. You’ll see a list of all imported plays (today and earlier)
  • Tap the funnel icon at the top right to enable the filter, and tap the Anytime filter. Select Today in the popup and tap Filter. You’ll see all plays imported today.
  • On iOS tap the “Select” button, on Android the button with three lines and arrows at the top right. Then tap ‘All’ at the bottom to select all plays. Check to see if you have the correct list of plays selected (if you have imported other plays today, unselect these).
  • Tap the delete button and confirm. The plays will be deleted from BG Stats and from BGG.