Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

Richard — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 19:59:18 GMT

I had switched my approach to using the readexcelsheet function from a different shared component, but it appears that component and the one we were just discussing are going from the shared components list, Does anyone know why?

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

ankitab918 — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:34:24 GMT

1)CDT is multiple types
2) it's not a nested cdt
3)input file is .xlsx

i am using "Parse Excel Spreadsheet to CDT"
Header List:={"sortKey","storyKey","techDescription","sprint", "dependencies","assignedTo", "storyPoints","actualEffort","status", "comments"}
Is Header Present: True
Max Row Count:1000
Sheet Number: 1 (when entered 0,following error is displayed Sheet index (-1) is out of range (0..2) )
start Row: 2

New Microsoft Excel Worksheet.xlsx

APP_UserStoryDoc.xsd

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

bhanuprakashm — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:41:17 GMT

@ankitab918, please follow these pre-requisites
Pre-requisites
* CDT passed in as input must be Multiple Type
* Does not currently handle nested CDTs
* Includes code borrowed from James Carter (CDT Helper) and Sandeep Kumar (Basic POI HSSF Functionality)
* Input file must be .XLSX not .XLS
* readExcelRow and readExcelColumn return Text arrays. You must do any type conversion on your own.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

bhanuprakashm — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:39:06 GMT

@ankitab918 can you please check the excel document extension should be ".xlsx" or else it is not parsing. Please check once.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

ankitab918 — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:24:37 GMT

Also, when i am providing the sheet no. as 0, i am getting the below error:
Sheet index (-1) is out of range (0..2)

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

ankitab918 — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:20:39 GMT

Hi, i read the above comments and accordingly, i have kept the header list of the excel document and the cdt exactly same. Also, the header list in the input parameters of the smart service matches with that of the cdt and the excel header row. Even then, the document is not getting parsed. Is there something else to configure?

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 01:55:41 GMT

An other option is to make use of fn!readexcelcolumn() in the 'Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities' Shared Component(the one which we are discussing on at the moment) but the process needs to perform little bit home work prior to constructing the CDT.

Example:
fn!load(
          local!col1:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,1),
          local!col2:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,2),
          local!col3:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,3),
          local!col4:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,4),
          local!col5:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,5),
          local!col6:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,6),
          local!col7:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,7),
          local!col8:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,8),
          local!col9:fn!readexcelcolumn(4865,1,9),
          /* Perform Type Casting of the above data */
          fn!apply(
                    type!Example(
                              product_id:null,
                              quantity_ordered:_,
                              special_instructions:_,
                              fulfillment_employee:_,
                              fulfillment_manager:_,
                              warehouse_aisle:_,
                              warehouse_shelf:_,
                              order_priority:_,
                              robot_picker_id:_,
                              backlog_estimate_date:_
                    ),
                    fn!merge(
                              local!col1,local!col2,local!col3,local!col4,local!col5,local!col6,local!col7,local!col8,local!col9
                    )
          )
)

Advantage is that you don't need to worry about how headers are named but the downside is, querying each column, then type casting and mapping to a CDT finally makes the approach expensive on the whole.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 01:21:55 GMT

@richard.nolan Have you had a thought over using 'Read Excel File' at https://forum.appian.com/suite/tempo/records/item/lMBCLGOdlMUpdGVqW3dQaIKmclBmvvNEj8vu_cjb7T-5YiPr4Fu8ly5Yj1s09uenE4RYzA8zKyx7eiUhe-uLnOF-0Nns7GJH66UeF02OAU96rxFlg/view/summary? Here is an example of how to use it:

fn!readexcelsheet(
excelDocument: ,
sheetNumber: 0,
startRow: 2,
numberOfColumns: 9
)

But you need to bear in mind that you need to type cast and map the result set to the target CDT. Good thing is that you don't need to worry about headers in Excel vs fields in CDT and downside is that you need to do some perform some homework (in terms of type-casting and mapping to target CDT) in the process.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 01:03:55 GMT

Sure, will do. Correct, even Macros do need a rework but the advantage is that the templates will be business friendly and off-course again you need a CDT again to read the values based on headers.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

Richard — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 01:00:31 GMT

Thanks so much! I did read the Macro posts! Helpful, but still not entirely what we need. If you do stumble across something useful, please do let me know!

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:58:41 GMT

richard.nolan I believe it's not straight forward in-case of this plugin. If you would like to proceed with usage of this plugin, as per my knowledge, you need to implement Macro method as suggested earlier(where I did point to a forum post) in this post.

Meanwhile I will take a look at the plugins if any that can accomplish your use-case without much changes.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

Richard — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:30:28 GMT

That makes sense, but is unfortunate. I had hoped that the 'Parse Excel Spreadsheet to CDT with Header List' offered significantly enhanced functionality over 'Parse Excel Spreadsheet to CDT' Smart Service.

Given that I would like to read historical spreadsheets (and cannot therefore control the headers) as part of a process model, is there a better way to read the data out of them? Any advice?

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:05:18 GMT

@richard.nolan Hi, so the Inputs of 'Parse Excel Spreadsheet to CDT With Headers' Smart Service should be configured as follows as per the CDT you have attached:

Cdt: {type!Example()}
Excel Doc:
Header List: {"quantity_ordered","special_instructions","fulfillment_employee","fulfillment_manager","warehouse_aisle","warehouse_shelf","robot_picker_id","order_priority","backlog_estimate_date"}
Is Header Present: True
Max Row Count: 10000
Sheet Number: 1
Start Row: 2

Note:
The Headers in the Excel should exactly match the names of the fields in CDT. For example, you can't expect to map the values of 'Priority' in the Excel to map to 'order_priority' in CDT. In short, the Headers (the very first row) in the Excel should exactly match the names of the fields in the CDT, else the columns with unmatched headers will be ignored by smart service.

Not sure if my explanation answers your question, but please do let me know in case if you have follow up questions or concerns.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

Richard — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 22:58:06 GMT

Cheers, anything you can clarify would be great. My main issues is trying to figure out the configuration of that "Header List" data input (or dictionary entry in the matching expression)

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 22:44:51 GMT

@richard.nolan Hi, let me see your last two comments and I will try to see what can be done. I have actually forgotten to reply to this.

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

Richard — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 22:39:48 GMT

So does anyone have an example of how to configure the data inputs tab of the parse Excel to CDT with Header List Smart Service?

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

Richard — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 20:59:24 GMT

I've attached four files. An xsd that defines my CDT and three example spreadsheets:
Works_no_problem.xlsx contains the correct column headers and no extraneous columns.
might_work_with_header_list.xlsx contains the correct columns but has different headers.
might_work_has_extra_columns.xlsx contains the correct data but has both different column headers and extraneous columns that should be ignored.

I did read the documentation, however there are two smart services, Parse Excel Spreadsheet to CDT, and Parse Excel Spreadsheet to CDT with Header List. The second formed the basis for my question, I'm not sure how to format that Header List input. Is it a data dictionary that allows me to map cdt values to particular headers in the spreadsheet, is it a text array of headers that should map to the cdt values? There isn't much documentation.

Part of the exercise we're trying to build is to use an automated process to capture archival data that's held in spreadsheets, so this tool would be hugely useful for us....

Cheers

might_work_has_extra_columns.xlsx

might_work_with_header_list.xlsx

Works_no_problem.xlsx

Example.xsd

RE: Inside the Read Excel Spreadsheet Utilities plug-in, there is a smart service (a

sikhivahans — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 09:48:45 GMT

@richard.nolan Hi, have you had a chance to take a look at the following point in the documentation of the Plugin?

*To use: Create a spreadsheet and make the first row a reader row whose names correspond exactly to field names in your CDT (capitalization sensitive.) Header names that don't match CDT fields will be ignored.

I believe that the above mentioned point is the key constraint that I have observed in the implementation of it. Not sure if that answers your question and if not, I would suggest adding some more information re CDT structure and the Excel Template(with headers) and that leaves space for the community to come up with pointers.

Just in case, if you would like to overcome the header names limitation,you may opt for using Macro method as discussed at https://forum.appian.com/suite/tempo/entry/e-194503 and separate technical and end-user facing content.