How to simplify import of data from excel, linked entities
I
Ivar.gjerde
started a topic
2 months ago
Hi,
Is there a way to configure import from excel so that a business user can import data without having to look up the IDs for any referenced entities? It's causing a lot of pushback from our business users and steals dev time when we need data engineers to support with what should be basic imports of data into Semarchy
Details:
We utilize reference entities in our models to hold LoV type attributes. E.g. we have product lines that we use to categorize our products in our product model. This enables us to let Business Users maintain their own reference data without involving developers. And also lets us add additional attributes to the entities like which product team the product line is managed by. The Product team is another reference entity where we have a list of the product teams to ensure consistency in the input.
We have an issue when the business users want to use the import/export to excel functionality to update the data sets. E.g. if we want to bulk add multiple product lines the business user will add the new lines to the excel sheet, but for the Product teams, Semarchy will ask for the ID of the row from the Product Teams entity. It will not accept e.g. the name of the team. The Business User does not know the ID, and then we need to involve the Dev team to support even if it shouldn't be necessary to do so. We use FDN_ProductTeam in the form that has been configured to support the import. Is there a better way to do this where we can make it easy enough that a business user can import data without having to look up all the IDs for any referenced entities
Ivar.gjerde
Hi,
Is there a way to configure import from excel so that a business user can import data without having to look up the IDs for any referenced entities? It's causing a lot of pushback from our business users and steals dev time when we need data engineers to support with what should be basic imports of data into Semarchy
Details:
We utilize reference entities in our models to hold LoV type attributes. E.g. we have product lines that we use to categorize our products in our product model. This enables us to let Business Users maintain their own reference data without involving developers. And also lets us add additional attributes to the entities like which product team the product line is managed by. The Product team is another reference entity where we have a list of the product teams to ensure consistency in the input.
We have an issue when the business users want to use the import/export to excel functionality to update the data sets. E.g. if we want to bulk add multiple product lines the business user will add the new lines to the excel sheet, but for the Product teams, Semarchy will ask for the ID of the row from the Product Teams entity. It will not accept e.g. the name of the team. The Business User does not know the ID, and then we need to involve the Dev team to support even if it shouldn't be necessary to do so. We use FDN_ProductTeam in the form that has been configured to support the import. Is there a better way to do this where we can make it easy enough that a business user can import data without having to look up all the IDs for any referenced entities